


the dreamer and the damned

by TtotheYong



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Blood Magic, Blood and Injury, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, M/M, Master/Servant, Mentions of Suicide, Minor Character Death, Murder, Occult, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Homophobia, Prophetic Dreams, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Trust Issues, Violence, but "enemies" is maybe too strong of a word
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 51,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29494122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TtotheYong/pseuds/TtotheYong
Summary: Taeyong is dreaming. He knows he’s dreaming, has had this dream before. He doesn’t like this dream. It doesn’t matter – it overtakes him anyway.All his life, Taeyong has worked as a servant on the Jung estate. And all his life, he’s had dreams that come true. Some of his dreams are harmless, and some are strange and terrifying, like the recurring dream he’s been having of Jaehyun, the cold Jung heir, who hasn’t returned to his family’s estate in years.But when Jaehyun returns, and Taeyong is visited by a dream of a woman’s murder in a mysterious city, the two become entangled in a web of corruption and violence that threatens them both.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 75
Kudos: 184





	1. Chapter 1

_Taeyong is dreaming. He knows he’s dreaming, has had this dream before. He doesn’t like this dream. It doesn’t matter – it overtakes him anyway._

_He’s in a bed. It’s not his own bed, or his own room. The small open window next to the bed isn’t the window of a place he recognizes. He can’t see much else; his face is pressed against a mattress, a calico quilt beneath his cheek. The colors are faded but it smells clean. His dreamsense tells him this: the quilt smells clean. This is different from actually smelling the quilt. But no less real._

_Also real is the heat. Warm air filters in through the window, although the light is the pale gray of very early morning. It’s summer. Taeyong knows the sweat that clings to his skin isn’t just his own. There’s another body here, hot skin against his back, fingers slipping over his waist, the sound of frantic breaths, moans. The person says Taeyong’s name, mouth moving against his neck. He doesn’t hear it. But his dreamsense tells him: this person is inside him, and saying his name. Taeyong’s other self, the one lying asleep in his narrow bed in the east tower above the other servants’ rooms, registers this and feels sick and panicked. But the dream doesn’t release him: his dream self still writhes in the bed on the clean, faded quilt, and wants more. The dream self is in love. Taeyong turns, in the dream, meets warm wet lips with his own, sees a face blurred by closeness as the dreamsensed pleasure builds, and breaks, and shatters through him. He can’t make out the features of the person who holds him. It doesn’t matter. His dreamsense knows._

_The dream changes. No. He doesn’t want the dream to change. No no no. The pleasure turns to fear, not a slow and subtle change, but all at once: his dreamsense told him he felt good, and now it tells him he is terrified. No._

_It’s dark, raining. Pouring, pounding rain, but it’s warm. Still summer, or perhaps another, later summer. Dreamsense is not so concerned with time. Taeyong’s feet slip over gravel as he walks, then soft muddy grass. A building looms ahead. Dark, ruined wood under the rain. Taeyong knows this place. He doesn’t want to go inside._

_He’s inside. It’s darker still, but there is a source of dim light somewhere. It smells like horses, and mold, and rotting wood; his dreamsense tells him this. And it smells of something else. Rain falls through holes in the roof. Taeyong’s boot lands in a puddle. There are puddles everywhere, but this one is not made by the rain. He looks down, sees the body at his feet, the dark shine of dim light on pale skin and the depthless, spreading puddle. He drops to his knees. He’s too late. The light is too dim to make out the features of the person who lies at his feet._

_But his dreamsense knows._

Taeyong woke with a start. He fought his way back to awareness, breathing through his nose to calm the nausea rising in him. His dreams always left him disoriented, and this one was the worst. But he’d been having this dream for over a year now already, and had gotten better at calming himself when he woke up.

His clothes stuck to his skin with sweat, and the sheets beneath him were damp as he sat up. The sky outside the window showed signs of dawn. It didn’t make sense to go back to sleep. He peeled off his clothes and stumbled to the wash basin under the small mirror on the wall. The water had warmed with the heat of the room, and barely offered relief.

His room was always uncomfortably hot in the summer, tucked as it was up into the eaves at the very top of the manor. But he valued this room more than anything. It was small, and bare, but it was clean, and he had it to himself. He glanced up at the mirror, raised an eyebrow ironically. _Pitiful_ , he reminded himself, _that your lifelong home and your precious space within it have in fact never belonged to you at all._ A valuable reminder, no matter how kindly the Jungs treated him or how nice it was to have his own room at the top of the tower. He had had a good enough life, and was grateful for it. There were much worse lives than this for a man in his circumstances. The Jungs certainly would have had every right to send away the baby of their maid, especially when the maid died in the birthing, instead of keeping him and letting him grow up on their estate in the care of the other servants. That had been generosity beyond expectation. But he knew his place in the world. He’d made the mistake of forgetting once, when he was young, and the reminder than had been harsh. Now he did not let himself forget. 

He dressed in dry clothes over his still sweat-damp skin, and made his way down the narrow, winding stair, past the other servants’ quarters, and through a plain door to the rest of the house. The change was immediate--wide hallways, portraits in ornate frames, thick carpeting and draperies over the windows. And it was cool, now that he was out of the tower. But he was as familiar with these grand halls as he was with his own small room, and the splendor barely registered. He walked briskly to the opposite wing, enjoying the quiet of the estate at this early hour as he wound down through the immensity of halls and rooms and more stairs until he reached the kitchens. 

Cook was already up, as usual, preparing for the day. “Oh, Taeyong, good. When you’ve eaten, go out and bring in firewood, and check the water. It’s bath day.” 

Taeyong leaned against the enormous table that took up most of the space in the middle of the immense stone-walled room. Food was already laid out: bread and cheese, and meat from the Jungs’ supper the night before. Taeyong served himself and started to eat without sitting down. “Today?” 

“Where have you been, boy? Young Mister Jung returns home this evening. Surely you must have heard. With Lord Jung so ill, well.” Cook hummed. “Lots to prepare. And I do hope you have a clean uniform somewhere.” 

Taeyong stilled, lowering the bread he’d been about to take a bite of. For a brief dizzying moment, he was back in that bed, his senses filled with the clean scent of the calico quilt, then-- _no_ \--the stench of rotting wood threatened to choke him--

“Taeyong?” 

He shook his head, forced a smile. “Of course. I must have forgotten he… Mister Jung is coming… today.” 

“And Lady Jung invited the Moores for supper, to welcome Mister Jung, supposedly. But of course, they have a daughter who’s of marriageable age….” 

Cook kept talking, but Taeyong was no longer listening. _He_ was returning, today of all days. After Taeyong had had that cursed dream. Of course, Taeyong told himself sternly, he’d had the same dream so many times by now he’d lost count. It must just be a coincidence, that he dreamed it last night as well. _But it’s summer in the dream, and it’s summer now,_ a small voice whispered in his mind. He took a bite of bread and meat and chewed angrily. He’d had the dream last summer too, and that season had come and gone with no sign of Mister Jung, and no sign of the dream coming to pass. And anyway, Taeyong had dreams such as this one all the time, and they didn’t always come true. The chance was always there, which was… unusual, to be sure, but the reality could be changed. Why, just last week he’d dreamt of Cook breaking her wrist, and he’d been able to fix the crooked leg on the stepstool he’d seen, so that when she climbed up a few days later to reach a jar of jam, the stool had held and she’d been none the wiser. 

Most importantly, _this_ dream would not be difficult to prevent at all. If he’d only seen Mister’s Jung’s death, perhaps he would have been worried, but the first bit, in the bed… well. That was too ridiculous to even consider the chance of. His dreams had never been wrong before, exactly, but sometimes reality changed course without him, and some dreams never came to pass although he wasn’t aware he’d done anything to change them. It wasn’t always as straightforward as a crooked leg on a stool. Last night, and all those other nights, he’d dreamt something that was simply impossible. There was no course of events that could ever lead him from this moment in the kitchens to that bed. And that bed had to be somehow connected to the dark building and all the misery it contained--his dreamsense always showed the two scenes linked together. If he could prevent what he’d seen himself do with… _him_... on the calico quilt, which would be easy, as such a thing would never happen, then he could prevent what happened later, in the dark building in the rain. 

Taeyong finished his breakfast and stalked outside to start collecting firewood. The sun had broken over the horizon now, and it stretched over the trees and burned away the mist clinging to the grass. Everything was still; it would be hot again today. The summer had been unusually hot already, and the heat showed no sign of breaking as the sky brightened without a cloud in sight. 

Taeyong reached the wood pile, and couldn’t help glancing up towards the woods that covered much of the Jungs’ land. Somewhere at the edge of those trees, that dark building stood. The old stables, out of use for a generation since they’d built the larger brick-walled structure that now housed the horses, but left standing as the woods grew around it and the trees slowly reclaimed the rotting structure. Taeyong shivered despite the morning’s heat and started piling logs into his arms. He couldn’t deny that the news of Mister Jung’s imminent arrival had shaken him. The dream was ridiculous, but it was much easier to dismiss the premonitions when he knew the person they concerned was miles away at school. Taeyong hadn’t seen him in three years, as he’d stopped returning to the country estate and chosen to spend time with his family at their city residence instead, or to travel over the holidays. Even before that, they’d barely spoken. But now Mister Jung was finished with school, and his father was ill, so he was coming home. And it was summer. 

Taeyong stepped back into the dim coolness of the kitchen, and dumped his armful of wood onto the pile beside the enormous stone hearth. The kitchen was starting to fill now with a comforting bustle of activity as servants came in and out, some staying only to eat before their tasks took them elsewhere, others settling in to help Cook. Taeyong said his good mornings, ducked James the gardener’s ruffling of his hair, dodged knocking the Lady Jung’s breakfast tray out of Lucy’s hands, and made it back out into the yard for more firewood. He appreciated the rhythm of these mornings, the familiarity of them, even the repetitive to-and-fro between the yard and the kitchen as the woodpile beside the hearth grew. He’d spent his entire life on this estate, and although it wasn’t his, it was, for better or for worse, still home.

Taeyong dropped the last load of wood onto the pile by the hearth and brushed off his hands and clothes. He could tell that the day was indeed turning out to be busier than usual. A tense excitement hung in the air, and all conversation seemed to revolve around Mister Jung’s return. Some of the servants had never even met him, he’d been away so long, and they were eager to hear of him. 

As Taeyong set out towards the stables he overheard James say to Lucy, who hovered around him as he shaped the hedges that curved elegantly around the back gardens, “He’s nearly the age as our Taeyong, you know.” Taeyong paused and tried to duck so he wouldn’t be seen over the hedge, but James spotted him. “Oy, Taeyong, come over here and get young Lucy out of my hair, won’t stop pestering me with questions about Mister Jung.” Even as he said this he turned back to Lucy, “They were near inseparable as boys, always under my feet and trampling the flowers.” 

“Really?” Lucy turned to Taeyong with her eyes wide. “You played together?” 

“Once or twice, when we were very young. James has a flair for exaggeration, don’t listen to him.” 

“It wasn’t once or twice,” James grumbled. “They were like brothers, for a time.” 

“A very short time, a very long time ago,” Taeyong said, trying to keep his voice light. “I was too young to be much help with work then, and he was too young to go to school, that was all.” 

“He followed you around everywhere,” James chuckled. 

“He must be kind,” said Lucy. 

“We were children,” Taeyong said sharply. “I know him no better than any other servant now. I can’t speak to kindness. But it wouldn’t do to forget that no matter how he seems, he is still the eldest son of this house, the only son of the Jungs, and he certainly expects to be treated as such. It wouldn’t do to forget that at all.” 

“Oh, of course not,” Lucy faltered. 

As Taeyong walked off towards the stables he heard James say behind him, “Ah, don’t mind him, he has his moods doesn’t he. Mister Jung is kind enough, child, no need to worry.” 

Taeyong scuffed at the grass as he made his way around the side of the manor to the stables. The clear blue sky was suddenly irritatingly bright, the heat clung to his skin and made his neck itch. There was no need for it to be this hot. James’s words itched at him too, and memories he always tried to avoid hovered at the edge of his consciousness: distant summers long before this one, running through these same fields. Laughter. Whenever those memories came upon him, when he let himself think of that time, he was always struck by how endless it had seemed to him as a child, when in truth it had only been brief and insignificant. James was right, he and Mister Jung had been like brothers once--only he hadn’t been Mister Jung to him then, he’d just been Jaehyun. But that had changed when Jaehyun went off to school at the age of 10. When he’d left, he’d hugged Taeyong goodbye, promising the months until his return at the holidays would fly by. Taeyong was working by then, mostly with the horses, and he passed those months busily, increasingly excited as winter approached. And finally Jaehyun came home. But when Taeyong rushed out to greet him, Jaehyun returned his excited smile with only a cold stare. His tone was distant when he gestured to his luggage and told Taeyong to carry it up to his rooms. And then he’d walked inside, leaving Taeyong standing in the cold, staring after him. He didn’t know what he’d done to cause Jaehyun to treat him with such coldness. But he did not address him as Jaehyun anymore after that.

Taeyong slammed the gate to the stables open with unnecessary force. “What’s gotten you all riled up?” Mr. Kim, the stable master, looked up from where he was sweeping the yard clear.

“It’s nothing,” Taeyong muttered. He turned away from old Mr. Kim and took a deep breath. The stables never smelled good, exactly, but he liked being here. The noise and business that surrounded the manor didn’t quite penetrate the brick walls, and the gentle shifting and huffing of the horses always calmed him. 

“Well then, start shoveling out the old hay. And see that Commodore is especially well tended. Mister Jung’ll want to see him, I’m sure.” 

“If he even remembers him.” Taeyong grabbed a pitchfork. 

Mr. Kim laughed. “No one forgets their horse, boy, you know that. Least of all a horse as fine as Commodore. Tend him well, now, y’hear.” 

Taeyong walked into the low row of stalls that stretched along one side of the enclosure. The sounds of the day dulled even more, as did the heat, while the horse noises and smells surrounded him. He murmured to the horses as he worked his way down the row, and they snorted quietly back. When he reached Commodore’s stall, the biggest stall at the end, for the largest horse, he paused. “Well Commodore, he’s coming back.” Taeyong laid his hand against the horse’s warm neck and patted him gently. Commodore turned his head and stared with one large dark eye, black and glossy like the rest of him. “Yes, it’s been a long time, I know. I suppose he’ll take you out to run now instead of me, won’t he.” He picked up the pitchfork again. Commodore stepped carefully around him as he filled the stall with fresh, sweet-smelling hay. “No, I don’t know how long he’ll stay. Until his father recovers, perhaps. Maybe I’ll get to ride you again soon enough.” 

Taeyong let himself get lost in the steady rhythm of work in the stables, putting memories of the past and anticipation for the future out of his mind. When the light started to fade, he wondered if he might be forgotten and allowed to stay away from the manor through the whole to-do of Mister Jung’s return. But all too soon he heard a voice calling his name, and went out to find Lucy peering over the gate. “Taeyong! Mrs. Jones is beside herself getting the staff in order. James already set out to the station to collect Mister Jung. Cook’s covered for you but you better come quick.” 

Taeyong brushed his dirty hands ineffectively on his pants and reluctantly followed Lucy out of the gate. Mr. Kim lived with his family in the village, and must have already left as he was nowhere to be seen. Taeyong envied him. 

“Hurry!” Lucy called over her shoulder. “You smell of horses and you’ll barely have time to get clean.” 

“Alright, alright, I’m coming.” Taeyong walked faster. When they entered the kitchens Cook burst out with an exasperated flurry of exclamations and shooed him towards the back corner of the kitchen where the bath was still full of tepid water behind a screen. Taeyong eyed the less-than-clear water in the metal tub and sighed.

“Last one to bathe, and serves you right, disappearing like that,” Cook called through the screen, as if she sensed Taeyong’s hesitation. “Will, go up and get him a clean uniform.” There was a scampering of little feet as the kitchen boy rushed off to the stairs. 

Taeyong undressed and scrubbed himself off as best he could in the tub. When he climbed out again Will was there, catching his breath and holding out his clean clothes. Taeyong pulled them on and stepped back into the kitchen. Cook glanced at him and then stared up at the ceiling, letting out a long-suffering sigh. “How is it that little Will looks more respectable than you, and that’s after nearly breaking his neck on those stairs?” 

“I--” Taeyong started. He at least didn’t smell of horses anymore, and his uniform was mostly unwrinkled, although already getting hot in the heat of the summer evening. 

“Comb your hair, and present yourself to Mrs. Jones. And you were ill this afternoon from the heat.” 

“The heat?” Taeyong asked, as he squinted at his reflection in the window and worked a part into his damp hair, trying to push it back from his forehead in a way that looked as though it had been intentional. 

“Yes, well, she’s always thought you were a bit weak, I’m sure she’ll believe it easily enough. Now get out!”

Taeyong thanked Cook and hurried up the stairs to the foyer. Mrs. Jones was there fretting over the uniforms of the maids. Taeyong tried to slip out of the front door without notice, but Mrs. Jones’s eyes were sharp. “Taeyong! Where have you been?” she called. 

“Oh, a bit, er, ill, ma’am,” he managed. 

“Fix your hair,” she said, already turning back to the maids. 

“Yes ma’am,” Taeyong said, and hurried past her out of the grand front doors, which were wide open to the evening air. Most of the household staff had gathered already. The sun was sinking quickly to the west, and the summer sky over the woods was streaked with reds and oranges, fading through yellow to blues that defied the imagination. Gnats drifted around Taeyong’s head as he leaned against the pale stone of the enormous front steps, and bats swooped over the dim trees. 

Presently, the sound of hooves and wheels on the gravel drive could be heard in the distance. The servants stirred and conversation grew hushed as they arranged themselves carefully in a row along the steps. Taeyong could hear scurrying inside as one of the maids rushed upstairs to inform the Jungs of their son’s arrival. Taeyong clasped his hands behind his back and stood straighter as the carriage came into view, James sitting on the bench at the front. He felt strangely nervous, which was unusual. He’d served this family his whole life, and most of that time had included serving Mister Jung as well. He’d been hurt when their friendship had so abruptly ended, true, but he’d only been a child, and he’d moved on, carried out his duties professionally and otherwise kept his distance. He’d never felt nervous when Mister Jung arrived before, although his absences had never been so long until now. Perhaps that was all it was. 

The carriage pulled to a stop at the bottom of the steps, and Mr. Smith, the butler, stepped forward to open the door. A shiny black shoe descended from the carriage and hit the pale gravel, and then Mister Jung was stepping around Mr. Smith with a nod. He stopped at the bottom of the steps, as James and a footman gathered up his trunk from the back of the carriage, and gazed up at the manor’s immense brick facade. Then he turned and gazed with much the same look at the row of servants. He did not seem to be looking upon his home, or upon servants who, in some cases, had served his family since before his birth, and cared for him all his life. Although he smiled at Mrs. Jones and Mr. Smith and greeted them politely, his eyes were distant, just like they’d been when Taeyong had last seen him. Taeyong chewed the inside of his cheek, only realizing at that moment that part of him had been hoping to see something different in Mister Jung’s eyes after all this time. 

Despite the same cold gaze, other things about Mister Jung had changed, which Taeyong noticed as he started up the steps and the light spilling from the front doors fell over his features. When he’d left he’d been shorter than Taeyong, but now was inches taller. His face had lost its softness and the light from the entryway cast shadows that accentuated his strong nose and jaw, and the incongruously delicate curve of his cheek. He was elegantly dressed despite the day’s travel, and not a strand of his black hair was out of place. He barely even seemed to sweat, despite the layers of clothing and the summer heat which had not yet faded with the setting sun. Taeyong realized that Mister Jung had still been a boy the last time he’d seen him, yet he was now undeniably a man. 

Mister Jung didn’t look at Taeyong as he passed, and then Lady Jung was sweeping out through the doors and gathering her son in an embrace. He had to bend down to return it. They disappeared into the house, the Lady’s bright voice filling the entryway with her questions, and the staff trailed in after them. 

Taeyong shook off his vague sense of unease and bitterness and headed back to the kitchens. Before Cook could set him to help serve supper, or anything else he’d have to do upstairs, he told her he’d finally get to fixing the fence that surrounded the small yard behind the kitchen. The evening light had faded but the glow from the kitchen windows was bright enough for him to work by, and this kept him busy outside the house through the Moores’ arrival, and their supper. Cook let him be--she had been pestering him to see to the fence for weeks, after all--and Taeyong only came back in when it had grown very late, and he knew the Moores had departed and the Jungs had retired for the night. Cook eyed him shrewdly as he said goodnight and started towards the stairs, but she said nothing and let him go without comment. 

When Taeyong entered his small room, he felt as though many days had passed since he’d woken up there just that morning. He shrugged off his uniform and opened the small dormer window as wide as it would go, letting the cooler breeze filter in and clear out the day’s stuffy heat. And finally, he dropped into his bed and fell asleep almost at once, praying he wouldn’t dream. 

_Taeyong is dreaming. It is a new dream, but his dreamsense still hums through him, telling him to pay attention, that this dream too may someday come to pass. He can’t feel his own body around him. But his dreamsense still lets him see. It’s night. There’s a city, spread out below him. It’s not a city he knows. The buildings are pressed close together and the lights look hazy through smog and smoke. A clocktower looms in the distance, the clockface brightly lit although the building below it is dark. There’s water, briny-smelling and close. Without any sense of his body Taeyong can’t tell if he’s moving, but suddenly a building is below him, and then he’s inside, as though he’s sunk in through the roof._

_The building is dark, and vast. The walls disappear into blackness beyond the dim glow of a single lantern. Wooden beams stretch between supports under the roof. Taeyong makes out shadows moving below him in the lantern’s light. There are sounds here. Screams, his dreamsense tells him. His view shifts around one wooden column and he can see the woman who is screaming, only now her screams form words as she leans against the column and faces two men in dark suits._

_“Get away from me! I’ve told my family everything, they already know enough to put an end to all his unnatural business, he’d never make another cent, and if I don’t come home--”_

_“Ah, shut your mouth and stop wasting our time. You haven’t told your family, you haven’t told anyone.”_

_“And if you have,” the other man laughs, a low, menacing sound, “well, won’t be much harder to take care of them too then, will it?”_

_“Don’t you dare.” But the woman’s voice shakes._

_“I’ve had enough of your noise. Finish it,” the first man says, sounding bored._

_The other man lunges forward, and Taeyong thinks, “Run! Move! Get out!” But his dreamsense binds him, and all he can do is see, and hear. He realizes that the woman is already hurt, her leg or maybe her foot that won’t let her flee. She tries anyway. The man catches her easily, drags her back, slams her to the ground and holds her down._

_The other man comes near. Taeyong wants more than anything not to see anymore. He wants to wake up. But his dreamsense never lets him go until it has shown him all he’s meant to see. This man has a rope, taut between his hands. He kneels, loops it around the woman’s neck, and although she screams and pleads and thrashes the other man holds her fast. Taeyong tries to scream too, but he can’t make a sound. After a few moments, the woman goes silent._

_Still, Taeyong’s dreamsense holds him here. The men sit for a moment, panting and sweating from the exertion of taking a person’s life. But beyond the physical drain, they seem unaffected. One leans over the woman’s arm, and does something to it that Taeyong can not see. Then the men both straighten. When they lift the woman’s body, Taeyong sees the rope looped around her neck._

_They hang her from a roof beam, and Taeyong stares at her empty face. There’s blood on the floor, a dark pattern of small droplets that fall as she swings slowly back and forth._

_One of the men is talking again, and Taeyong looks away from the woman and sees that they’re standing, looking up at the body, eyes uncaring. “Heard this is a place sailors hang themselves in,” the man is saying. “No one will ask too many questions.”_

_“Well, people know not to ask too many questions around here anyway, don’t they.”_

_The men laugh, and that’s how they leave, laughing as the light of their lantern fades while the woman remains, hanging in the darkness, and Taeyong’s dreamsense lets him go at last._

Taeyong couldn’t hold the nausea back when he woke, and he barely made it to the basin before emptying his stomach of all its contents. He was soaked in sweat again, and knew it was still summer, and hot, but he shivered violently and his damp skin only chilled him more. 

When his stomach was empty, he slumped against the wall, shaking, his mind a riot of thoughts as the physical aftereffects of the dream left him. He’d never seen something so horrible before. Even his dream of Mister Jung wasn’t so visceral, so _clear_ as this. Of course, Taeyong had normal dreams as well, which could be as bizarre and terrifying as anyone else’s. But those were always hazy, and he could always feel the difference right away between a dream invented in his own sleeping mind, and one that was shown to him, where he followed the whim of the dreamsense. What he’d seen happen to that woman was a nightmare, and yet it would become real. 

But the awfulness of it wasn’t the only thing that bothered him. He’d never dreamt of something so unknown to him. Most of his dreams until now involved the people he was closest to: the other servants, or the Jungs themselves. Sometimes he’d dream of a neighboring family, or of people in the village. But this dream showed him a place he’d never seen, and people he’d never known. This terrified him even more than the gruesome nature of it. He’d almost always been able to help change the things his dreams foretold, if it was something to be avoided. But he couldn’t possibly prevent this woman’s death--her murder--when he knew nothing about who she was, or where it happened, or even when it would occur. It could be tomorrow, or years away. 

Taeyong stared at the ceiling and wiped his eyes. His breathing had calmed, and his stomach had settled. He wasn’t sure why he’d been shown this, but now he was awake, in his room on the Jung estate, where there was always work to be done. This was real, this was what mattered. The dream had been terrible, but there was nothing he could do, except pull himself together and focus on helping the people around him for whom he could really make a difference.

Dawn was still a long way off, but Taeyong didn’t let himself sleep again. 

Taeyong told himself to move on, and for a few days he did. He went about his work, and at night when he fell exhausted into bed, he was lucky and the dreamsense didn’t claim him. He pushed the woman out of his mind and told himself he’d never have that dream again. He’d never learn where that city was, never hear about the woman who would someday almost certainly be killed there. His biggest concern became staying out of Mister Jung’s way. 

This wasn’t terribly difficult, because Mister Jung spent much of his time with his father, whose condition was not improving. From the servants’ whisperings, Taeyong understood that the younger Jung was helping his father with his work, with the business and the family’s accounts to keep everything in order until Lord Jung could fully return. Lord Jung usually spent most of his time at the family’s city residence, where his offices were, attending to his business and growing their fortune. But he’d come out to the country at the doctor’s suggestion a month ago, and still was not well enough to leave again. 

The Moores came by often as well, and it wasn’t lost on anyone that Miss Elizabeth always accompanied her mother on these visits. Taeyong saw Miss Elizabeth and Mister Jung together from a distance sometimes, walking in the gardens, or horseback riding on the lands of the estate. These were the only times Taeyong had to come face to face with Mister Jung, when he headed to the stables, alone or with Miss Elizabeth. As Taeyong spent most of his time working there he could rarely avoid this. He’d keep his eyes on Commodore as he saddled him up, while Mister Jung would chat idly with the stable master, or just stand and stare haughtily into space. Miss Elizabeth was considerably more pleasant, with a bright voice and a quick laugh that was louder than Taeyong expected from a young lady. When the horses were ready, Mister Jung would swing himself up with a nod to Mr. Kim and barely a glance at Taeyong, and canter out of the stable gates. 

However even these irritating moments quickly accommodated themselves into Taeyong’s normal routine. He stopped thinking about his dreams, and stopped feeling bitter at Mister Jung’s coldness. It wasn’t personal, after all, and it wasn’t any different from how he’d treated him for most of their lives. This was how servants could always expect to be treated by an employer, after all. And if Taeyong noticed the way Mister Jung exchanged pleasantries and even smiles with some of the other servants, he put it out of his mind. 

But then, the dream of the woman came again. It seized him one hot night not even a week after the first time he’d had it. Everything was the same, but it seemed even more vivid than before, as though the dreamsense held Taeyong even tighter. And after that, the dream started taking him more frequently, every other night, and then every night. This had never happened before. Most of his dreams only came to him once, maybe twice, and even the dreams of Mister Jung only happened sporadically, with weeks or even months in between. Taeyong had never hated his dreams, even though they took a lot out of him; they were infrequent, and usually what he saw wasn’t so terrible, and helped him improve things in his waking life. But now he hated them. He hated this useless sort of power, to see the future and be unable to change it, to be terrified by it and impotent against it every time he closed his eyes. 

By the second week of this, Taeyong had started trying not to sleep. This was barely a conscious choice, he’d just become so afraid of having to see the woman die, again, while he hovered bodiless and trapped above, that he stopped letting himself fall asleep. But eventually, towards dawn, his body’s exhaustion would take over and plunge him into unconsciousness for just long enough to dream, and then he’d wrench himself from sleep, sick and shivering, and try to get through another day. 

And then one day the dreamsense took him while he was awake. Taeyong was in the stables, alone for the moment while Mr. Kim exercised one of the newer horses. He was going about his work in a daze of exhaustion, but he was awake, he was sure of that. He was standing by Commodore, brushing his coat to a glossy sheen and murmuring to the horse as he always did. And then he was in the dream. Or rather, the dream appeared before him. He could still see Commodore, and the stables around him with warm sunlight filtering through the windows, but all was faded behind the images of the city, and the huge dark building, and the woman struggling below. Taeyong stumbled backwards and hit the edge of Commodore’s stall hard, but the dream continued playing out, as though reflected on a translucent curtain in front of his eyes. When the dream ended, Taeyong sank shaking down to his knees and lost track of time until Mr. Kim found him and sent him back to the house to rest, thinking he’d simply fallen ill. 

Taeyong needed the rest, but he dreaded it, and Cook had to shout at him before he finally agreed to go to his room and take the rest of the day off. But when he fell asleep, the dream was waiting for him again. He woke up and for the first time in his life prayed, desperately, for the dreams to stop, for this ability which had become a curse to let him go. 

Taeyong’s prayers went unanswered, and the next day the dream took him again. This time he was out in one of the gardens, tending to a bed of flowers that were suffering in the endless summer heat. He was alone again, thankfully, as James was working on the hedges that lined the long drive at the front of the house. The dream seized him more violently this time. Unlike the morning before, when he’d still been aware of his surroundings, this time he could see nothing except the dream: city, building, lantern, struggle… the woman swaying slowly from the rafters while the men laughed below. The bright flowers and summer sunlight that surrounded Taeyong in reality completely disappeared.

When the dream let him go and he became aware of his body again, he could feel damp just-watered soil at his back, and realized with a twist of shame that he must have collapsed. The brightness of the sun seared through his eyelids and his head ached. And then suddenly the brightness dulled as a cool shadow moved over him. He opened his eyes, and blinked at the face hovering over his own. 

“Are you alright?” Mister Jung asked. He looked almost concerned, though it must have been for the loss of productivity an idle or ill servant meant for the estate. 

“Yes, sir, I’m fine, my apologies.” Taeyong’s throat was dry and his voice sounded weaker than he wanted it to. He scrambled up too fast and swayed horribly as his vision brightened alarmingly and then darkened. 

Strong hands gripped his arms, steadying him, and when Taeyong could see again he startled at how close Mister Jung suddenly was, his face only inches away. This close, Taeyong saw that Mister Jung could be affected by the heat afterall; there was sweat beaded at his temples and a pink flush high on his pale cheeks. “You’re not--” Mister Jung started, and Taeyong could feel his voice reverberate into his arm where it pressed into Mister Jung’s chest. 

Taeyong pulled himself away and stepped back to a respectable distance, this time managing to keep his balance. He brushed the dirt from his pants and felt unbearably more ashamed when he saw that Mister Jung’s shirt had dirt on it now as well. “I’m quite alright, sir, and terribly sorry for the trouble. I’ll be sure to clean this up--” he gestured at the disarray of soil in the garden at their feet-- “and I’ll speak to Mrs. Jones right away about laundering your clothes.” He bowed stiffly and turned to hurry inside. 

“That’s not...” Mister Jung muttered behind him, but if he finished his thought Taeyong didn’t hear it. 

Taeyong spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the kitchens, more concerned for once about seeing Mister Jung again--or his parents, whom he might well have told about the incident in the garden--than about being scolded by Cook. She did scold him, when he came in covered in dirt, and later when he wasted time helping her with odd tasks that she didn’t need help with instead of doing his usual work. But she didn’t make him leave, and Taeyong caught her more than once eyeing him with a motherly combination of suspicion and concern. This was nearly as embarrassing as what had happened in the garden, but the look was less mortifying coming from her than it had been coming from Mister Jung. 

Taeyong lingered in the kitchens that night long after the rest of the staff went to bed. Even Cook retired, and he sat at the large table staring blankly out the windows at the moonlit grounds and trying not to let his eyes close. He was so exhausted, and so afraid. He was desperate to sleep, but the thought of dreaming again made his throat close and his eyes burn with frustrated tears. He’d always worked hard, and helped people with his dreams, but this dream felt like it had only been sent to punish him. 

Finally, when the moon rose high enough that it passed over the roof of the house and no longer illuminated the yard through the kitchen window, Taeyong gave up and trudged towards the stairs. His eyes were heavy and his body ached with tiredness even as he climbed. Perhaps he’d be able to sleep for a few moments before the dream found him tonight. 

Taeyong was so exhausted that he didn’t register the sound of footsteps behind him on the stairs until he’d nearly reached the landing outside his room. But suddenly a hand caught his arm and he stumbled sideways against the wall as a body crowded up onto the step beside him. 

“S-sir?” The staircase was dim, but there was no mistaking who it was, and Taeyong realized with a shiver that he had recognized the smell of him, of clean clothes and something woodsy and warm underneath, so unlike the smell of the servants who worked all day sweating in the heat. _He_ was here, when the only people who belonged in this staircase were servants. “You shouldn’t be here, sir.” 

“It’s my house,” Mister Jung said, his voice low but matter-of-fact. Taeyong’s face burned and he fumed at being so bluntly reminded that the place he slept belonged to someone else. “Are you alright? Don’t say you’re fine, I saw you in the garden. What happened?” 

Taeyong knew he was unable to stop himself from glaring, and he didn’t try. It was dark after all. “It was just the heat--” 

“Are you still having those dreams?” 

“W-what?” Taeyong stared, shaken, the glare melting off his face. He had forgotten Mister Jung knew about the dreams. He’d told him about them when they’d been friends--when they’d been children. But his dreams had been silly little things then, and the two of them had been thrilled about them. This was nothing like that. He couldn’t believe Jaehyun--Mister Jung--still remembered, and he couldn’t believe he’d thought of that when he saw Taeyong collapse. The thought of speaking to another person about his dreams now was unfathomable. He’d never spoken of them to anybody else, which meant he hadn’t spoken of them at all in many years. “What are you talking about?” Taeyong managed. 

Mister Jung didn’t seem to register Taeyong’s unease. “You used to have dreams, that came true. Was that what that was, earlier? Before you collapsed you looked… dazed, in a trance. I called you and you didn’t hear, you couldn’t even see me when I approached. And then you… fell.” 

Taeyong looked away, his gaze landing on Mister Jung’s hand that still gripped his arm. Mister Jung let go and stepped back, though there was still barely any space between them on the narrow stair. Taeyong could see him better now. He was in his shirtsleeves, and smudges of dirt still clung to his cuffs, which were pushed up to the elbow. Taeyong wondered why he hadn’t changed his clothes. 

Mister Jung cleared his throat, and when he spoke again the commanding edge had returned to his voice, although he still spoke quietly, conscious of the other servants sleeping below. “Tell me what happened, Taeyong.” 

Taeyong gritted his teeth. “Yes, it was a dream. Sir.” 

“What did you dream?” 

“It doesn’t matter--”

“It does,” Mister Jung hissed. “That isn’t how your dreams usually work. Or have you been collapsing all over the place?”

Taeyong almost snapped at him-- _you wouldn’t know, would you?_ \--but he remembered himself in time, and stayed quiet. He wasn’t used to carrying on a conversation with Mister Jung like this. He wasn’t used to Mister Jung speaking to him at all. 

Mister Jung stepped forward, his hands raising like he meant to grab Taeyong again, or shake him, but he stopped himself and left them hovering in the air between them. “Tell me what you dreamed.”

“Why does it interest you?” Taeyong bit out. 

“Because it looked bad for you,” Mister Jung said. Taeyong narrowed his eyes, but the other man’s face was hard to read in the gloom.

“I saw a woman killed,” Taeyong finally said, and he couldn’t keep the angry shake out of his voice. “Is that what you were hoping to hear? Sir?” 

“Who was she?” 

Taeyong couldn’t get a grasp on this conversation. He didn’t understand Mister Jung’s curiosity, after so many years of utter disinterest. But he thought answering his questions would at least end the conversation sooner, as Mister Jung didn’t seem inclined to let him go otherwise. 

“I don’t know,” Taeyong said, slumping back against the wall. “I’ve never seen her before. It was… strange. I usually dream about the people here, people I know.” Taeyong tried not to think about the dreams he’d had of Mister Jung himself. He described what he’d seen of the woman’s death as best he could. 

“And you’re certain you’ve never seen her, or the men?” Mister Jung asked when Taeyong was done. 

“I’m certain. I don’t know why I’ve been seeing this. But it’s been keeping me from sleeping, so please, sir, I’m tired….” He glanced towards the door of his bedroom, hoping Mister Jung would get the hint and dismiss him. 

“Where did this happen?” he asked instead. 

Taeyong sighed. “I don’t know. In a city. When the dream starts I see a city, as though I’m above it, somehow. It’s on the water, there are docks and ships.” The images of the dream were so burned into Taeyong’s mind by now that the details weren’t hard to recall. “And a clocktower. It’s lit up, the time… the time says half past eleven. But the building under it is dark, as though it’s empty and only the clock has been maintained. The other buildings are--”

“Coveport…” Jaehyun interrupted him. 

“Sir?” 

“I’ve been there. The clocktower you describe, I’ve seen it.” 

Taeyong couldn’t hold back a scoff. “Sir, there are clocktowers like that everywhere.” 

“Above abandoned buildings? Near docks?”

“There must be,” Taeyong said stubbornly. 

“Well, we can go see for sure. Coveport isn’t far from here. You must be having this dream for a reason, to help this woman. We can go there and save her.” 

“We--? Sir, with all due respect, don’t be ridiculous. My dreams are usually of such small, inconsequential things.” Taeyong again remembered his dreams of the man standing in front of him, and pushed them out of his mind. “I can help people in small ways, perhaps, but I’m not someone who rushes in and saves the day. Even if the place is… Coveport, how would we ever find this woman among the thousands who live there? And if I miraculously found her, what could I possibly do to help her? She wouldn’t pay me any mind, coming and warning her of premonitions. Please, sir.” Taeyong scoffed again bitterly. 

“You’re right. If you show up alone and start saying these things likely no one will pay you any attention. But people pay attention to me. So we’ll go together.” 

Taeyong stared at Mister Jung’s shadowed face in front of him, seething at his arrogance. Of course, he wasn’t wrong, people did pay attention to him and to the Jung family in a way they never would to a servant like Taeyong. But to just _say_ it like that, to Taeyong’s face, and be completely unabashed? The self-assuredness such a statement required bothered Taeyong even more than the words themselves. He would never be permitted such untouchable confidence. 

“No, sir, I’m sorry but I must decline,” Taeyong said stiffly. “I have many duties here that I must attend to. Now if you’ll please forgive me, sir, I must get some sleep, it’s very late.” He bowed his head and managed to edge away up the last few stairs. He stayed tense until he was in his room with the door closed behind him. Mister Jung let him go without a word, but it was some time before Taeyong heard his steps retreat back down the stairs. 

Taeyong washed and climbed into bed. Nerves twisted through him, but so did exhaustion. A small part of him that he was ashamed of had started to hope the woman’s death would come soon, because that must put a stop to the dreaming as nothing else had. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take. 

As it turned out, he couldn’t even endure another full day. The dream came to him that night, and then again as he worked in the kitchens the next morning, and then again that afternoon as he was rearranging the furniture in the dining room at Mrs. Jones’s request. When he came to on his knees with a chair tipped over beside him, he gave up. His dreamsense clearly wanted something from him, and wouldn’t let him go until he did something. 

He rose on shaking legs and started wandering through the estate in search of Mister Jung, who he finally found at the stables. He had mostly recovered from the dream by this time, and was glad for that when Mister Jung spotted him coming through the gate, and actually looked at him for once. Thankfully, Miss Elizabeth wasn’t present today. Mister Jung was standing beside Commodore and Mr. Kim out in the stable yard and looked like he’d just returned from a ride. 

As Taeyong approached, Mister Jung turned to Mr. Kim and said, “I’ll tend to Commodore, you may go.” 

Mr. Kim looked confused and as though he was about to protest, but something in Mister Jung’s face must have prevented it, because he turned and disappeared inside. 

Now that Taeyong was here with the warm sun on his skin and the familiar smell of horses all around, he hesitated. He didn’t want to leave this place. What he wanted was for everything to return to normal, to go back to dreaming of nothing more severe than little slips and falls. Even the disturbing dreams of Mister Jung were preferable. But he knew the dreams of the woman wouldn’t let him go just because he wished it. So he straightened his back and looked up at Mister Jung and said, as politely as he could so his voice wouldn’t betray his nerves, “Good afternoon, sir. I came to inquire about what you may know about… that place. Coveport.” 

Mister Jung nodded, and glanced behind him toward the open door Mr. Kim had disappeared through. “Come,” he said, and started to lead Commodore out through the gate. Taeyong hesitated, then followed a few steps behind. When they were some distance from the stables, walking with the horse over the sun-parched lawn, Mister Jung spoke again. “I have a friend, my closest friend from school, who I met as a boy. He’s from that area, his family’s home is nearby, and he has an aunt with whom he’s close who lives in Coverport itself. She’s a bit of an unusual character, runs a boarding house there, which I don’t need to tell you is odd for a woman of her station. I visited his family sometimes over the holidays and we went to see her in the city more than once.” Mister Jung smiled vaguely at the memory, then seemed to remember himself and grew solemn. “On one of our visits, years ago, there was a death in the newspapers. A hanging, near the docks. We were barely more than boys, so no one told us much, but I had the sense even then that there was something suspicious about it. Or, that John’s aunt was suspicious of it, at any rate. John would likely know more about it. He’s moved out of his family’s house and has a small cottage in the countryside now, with….” Mister Jung glanced at Taeyong and away, as though he’d stopped himself from saying something. “He may be able to tell us more about it, or help us find the woman. We can see him and then visit Coveport as well, his home is on the way. I wrote to him this morning.” 

“What?” Taeyong stopped walking. “What did you tell him? Sir,” he added as an afterthought. 

Mister Jung stopped too. “About your dream. Don’t worry, I’d trust John with my life.” 

“But this is _my_ life!” Even as the words left Taeyong’s mouth, he remembered his dreamsense showing him Mister Jung’s pale dead body at his feet in the abandoned stables, and wasn’t so sure his really was the only life involved after all. But the thought of a stranger learning about his dreams before they’d even met… he’d probably think he was completely mad, and perhaps that Mister Jung had lost his mind as well. 

“You don’t need to worry,” Mister Jung said, looking almost confused by Taeyong’s concern. Taeyong found his obliviousness irritating, another symptom of an arrogance so ingrained, Mister Jung couldn’t even see it in himself. Taeyong doubted it would ever cross his mind that his dear friend might not treat a servant as well as he treated men of his own station. Up until yesterday, Mister Jung himself had not shown Taeyong even the smallest consideration. Yet now he had no qualms asking for his trust. “He’s a good man. I told him to expect us tomorrow. Or only me, if you still refuse to come.” 

“You could simply order me to come. Sir.” Taeyong muttered under his breath, looking out across the fields. He could just see the dark shadow of the abandoned stables in the far distance. 

“I could,” Mister Jung said, but he didn’t say more, and only stood next to Commodore and waited. 

Taeyong let the silence stretch as long as he dared. The sun beat down on the back of his neck, but there was something comforting in it, despite the sweat that trickled down between his shoulder blades and made his shirt stick to his skin. “Your father is ill,” he finally said. 

“Yes, but not so ill that I can’t go call on an old friend,” Mister Jung said easily. “Things will hold without me for a few days.”

“Why would I join you on a trip to see an old friend?” 

“Because I request that you join me,” Mister Jung said. “No one will question it, it isn’t strange for a gentleman to travel with a valet. But if you don’t wish to join, just say so.” 

Taeyong glanced at Mister Jung. Even this irked him. Servants could not “just say” anything, certainly not directly to their masters. But Mister Jung looked back at him with an open expression and Taeyong thought perhaps he really could decline if he chose to. If he was honest with himself, now that a plan had been suggested, he couldn’t imagine turning away from it. Before, he’d thought there was nothing he could do, but now a tiny chance had presented itself in the unlikely person of Mister Jung, who was for some reason willing to use his considerable influence to try to change the course of events that Taeyong had dreamed. Taeyong couldn’t fathom what the reason for Mister Jung’s investment could be, but he couldn’t turn away from even this slim possibility that they could help prevent something disastrous. He nodded to Mister Jung once. “I will accompany you, sir.” 

“Good.” Mister Jung didn’t look surprised, and Taeyong fought the urge to scowl. “We’ll leave early tomorrow morning, before the heat is unbearable. The train runs to Coveport, but John’s house is out of the way, so we’ll ride. It should take only a couple of hours. You can take any horse you like, I trust you know them well.” Taeyong knew this offer did not include Commodore, but all the horses in the Jung stables were strong and fast enough for such a journey. “Bring clothes for a few days. I hope it won’t take us long once we reach Coveport to find the woman you’ve seen, but it’s hard to know what to expect. I’ll see you at the stables in the morning.” 

“...Yes, sir,” Taeyong said, disconcerted by how much Mister Jung had clearly thought about this plan. He watched Mister Jung turn Commodore and lead the horse back to the stables. Taeyong stayed where he was for a moment, squinting in the sun. He was nervous about many things--what they would find in Coveport, if they could possibly succeed in helping the woman, what to expect from this friend of Mister Jung’s who now knew of his strange dreams--but there was also a sense of calmness that he hadn’t felt since he’d first dreamed of the woman. 

That night, when the dream came to him, his dreamsense seemed gentler with him, as though it knew his plans and approved of them, and when he woke from the dream in the middle of the night, he was able to slip back into a sleep devoid of visions, and, finally, to rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well i've been planning this story for a long time and basically pysching myself out about it but finally decided it was past time to just start writing... so i hope you've enjoyed chapter 1! chapter 2 soon to come :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jaehyun was such a different person than he’d imagined. Everything about who he was since they’d set out on this strange journey seemed different than the man Taeyong had always believed him to be at the estate. But Taeyong wasn’t certain yet which version of Jaehyun was more real. He wanted to let himself be friends with this man that was lying next to him in the dark, but he still remembered what had happened when he’d befriended Jaehyun as a boy, and he couldn’t quite believe that wouldn’t happen again._
> 
> _“Have you ever been in love?” Jaehyun’s quiet voice broke through Taeyong’s thoughts._

The next morning Taeyong and Mister Jung set out early as planned, Mister Jung on Commodore and Taeyong on a steady horse named Windfall. They followed the main road for a while, passing wagons and carriages heading towards the village or to the surrounding estates, and then turned onto a quieter road. They didn’t speak, which was fine with Taeyong. The road was dusty under the horses’ hooves, and insects darted through the shafts of sunlight that filtered through the lush green trees. There was almost no breeze, and it was very hot even in the shade at the edge of the road. By the time they turned off this road to a narrow track that wound through thicker woods, Taeyong’s skin felt tight under a layer of sweat and dust, and his mouth was dry. At least Mister Jung, riding in the open instead of in the shelter of a carriage, seemed also not to have been spared by the heat or the dirt. 

The track in the woods was cooler, though branches snagged at their clothing as they passed between the trees. The sunlight took on a green tinge, and the birds which had been tired and quiet in the heat of the roads behind them here filled the canopy with their cacophonous songs. Finally, around midmorning, they came upon a wide, clear stream. The horses drank gratefully, and further down the stream they emerged into a sizeable clearing in the trees, with a stone cottage at the edge of it.

To Taeyong’s surprise, Mister Jung stopped and looked towards the cottage, smiling. “We’re here,” he said. 

Taeyong stared at the low building. Against one side was an enclosure with a horse and a chicken coop. The roof extended over the door, shading a large area of swept earth behind the house, and Taeyong could make out what seemed to be a painter’s easel next to a wooden chair. A line stretched from the roof to a nearby tree, hung with men’s clothes, the garments barely stirring in the still air. An outhouse sat some distance away, at the edge of the trees. This was not where Taeyong had expected any friend of Mister Jung’s to live. The place looked clean and comfortable enough but it was far from luxurious. “Your friend is a painter?” he asked, because he could think of nothing else to say.

“A writer,” Mister Jung said, and swung his leg over Commodore, dropping easily to the ground and leading the horse up the slope from the stream to the house. Taeyong hesitated, then followed. 

Before they reached the house, a tall man with warm brown hair, streaked dark gold under the sun, burst out of the door and hurried down the slope to meet them. “Jaehyun!” he exclaimed, and embraced him, slapping his back so loudly that Commodore tossed his head indignantly beside them. “How have you been?” His expression grew more solemn as he pulled back, holding Mister Jung at arm’s distance and scrutinizing him. “How’s your father?” 

“He’s alright. Not recovered, but he’s not gotten any worse. You know the city air, not good for the lungs, that’s all it is. How are you?” 

“Fine, fine.” He waved a dismissive hand and noticed Taeyong. “Taeyong, isn’t it?” he said, beaming again and stepping towards him. 

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Taeyong said, bowing. 

“Oh please, call me John,” he said, and seized Taeyong’s hand in a firm shake. Taeyong blinked up at him, squinting in the sun. Up close the man’s height was intimidating. He was a fair amount taller even than Mister Jung, and broader. He was in his shirtsleeves and his clothes were similar to Taeyong’s. His forearms were well muscled and tanned, and his palm against Taeyong’s was calloused, nothing like a gentleman’s. Although if he had been living here alone, Taeyong supposed he couldn’t be a stranger to strenuous work. 

John took Windfall’s reigns from Taeyong before he could say anything, and led the horse up to the enclosure near the house. Mister Jung followed with Commodore. 

Taeyong hesitated awkwardly as the two men walked ahead of him, then hurried to catch up with them. “Mister Jung, sir, I can take the bags.” 

Both men turned and looked at him, John looking surprised, and Mister Jung with a complicated expression that Taeyong couldn’t read. John looked from Taeyong to the man beside him. “‘Mister Jung?’” he asked. “I thought the two of you were friends.” 

Taeyong stared, his face going red. Had Mister Jung not told John that he was a servant? Did that explain the warm welcome? “I’m a servant of the Jungs,” Taeyong said, unable to keep the stubborn edge out of his voice. If Mister Jung was ashamed of that it was his own problem to deal with. 

But John just looked at Taeyong openly and said, “I know that,” and then turned expectantly back to Mister Jung. Taeyong suddenly realized that the expression on Mister Jung’s face was discomfort. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him look uncomfortable before. 

“You can… address me as Jaehyun,” Mister Jung said awkwardly. 

“Why, sir?” Taeyong asked. 

“Just do,” Mister Jung--Jaehyun--mumbled. “And I can take care of the bags.” He turned to bring Commodore through the gate. 

Taeyong stared. John smiled at him and shook his head, almost conspiratorially, as if they both were sharing a joke at a mutual friend’s expense, and then led Windfall into the enclosure as well. 

Taeyong frowned after them. He couldn’t quite understand what had just happened. John had known Taeyong was a servant, but had also been under the impression that he was Mister Jung’s friend, and had been surprised when he hadn’t addressed him as an equal. And the influence of his opinion was obvious: Mister Jung had been embarrassed. Taeyong felt he was missing something. Even in his own thoughts he couldn’t quite manage to call the man by his first name after so many years. It felt improper and overly intimate. And the thought that this was just a pretense for John’s sake nagged at him. When they left here, would he be put back in his proper place again, still at the whim of whatever Mister Jung preferred? 

He frowned and turned away from where the two men still tended the horses, and startled when he saw another man had emerged from the house and was watching him. The man had a slight build and hair even blacker than Mister Jung’s that hung to his chin and was tucked neatly behind his ears. There were different colors of paint splattered over his hands--here must be the owner of the easel, then. Taeyong ducked his head politely, uncertain now of any of the rules of proper etiquette that normally lent clarity to all of his interactions. “Hello, I’m Taeyong,” he said. 

“Pleasure,” the man said calmly. “I’m Ten. Come in.” He gave Taeyong a half-smile and turned into the house. Taeyong followed. 

They entered into one large room that stretched from the door they’d come through to the other side of the house. The space they were standing in was the kitchen, with a woodstove and a large table. The other side of the room was mostly taken up by a large stone fireplace, with two chairs sat nearby. A closed door in one wall must have led to a bedroom, and another larger door clearly led outside, but there did not seem to be any other rooms. 

Ten gestured toward the front of the room. “We’ll be able to set things up for the two of you to sleep here. I’m sorry there isn’t much space.” 

“Oh, thank you,” Taeyong said. He still felt as though he was trying to catch up to things that everyone else already understood. John had to be wealthy, and of considerable social standing, to have attended school with Mister Jung, but he lived here in the woods. Ten also lived here, and Taeyong had no idea whatsoever about Ten’s background. Taeyong couldn’t remember the last time he’d encountered a person without a clear and immediately understanding of their status, which, when it wasn’t explicitly announced, was usually obvious in a person’s clothes or behavior. He felt slightly unbalanced, as though this small house did not belong to the same world he’d always inhabited. 

Ten turned as John entered the house behind them, carrying Taeyong’s bag, which made him more uncomfortable still. It seemed very wrong that such a man should be the one carrying his belongings for him, instead of the other way around. Mister Jung followed, carrying his own bag, and the two men deposited the packs on a bench against the wall. “So,” John said, dusting off his hands, “Would you like to rest? You must be thirsty, here,” and he filled two clay cups with water from a large container in the corner and handed them to the two guests. The water was surprisingly cold, and sweet. “From the stream,” John explained. “We’re lucky, it’s cleaner than well-water. Have you eaten? Are you hungry?” 

It took Taeyong a moment to realize that this question had been addressed to him, and he glanced at Mister Jung, who was looking at John with amusement. “You don’t get many guests, do you?” he asked. 

“Is it that obvious?” John laughed. “But really, if you need anything, please ask.” 

“I’m fine, thank you.” Taeyong said. 

“Well then, come, sit.” He pulled a stool over to the table and Taeyong sat down awkwardly. Ten and Mister Jung sat too, but John stayed standing. He seemed like a man who never lacked energy. Taeyong glanced over at Mister Jung across from him and tried to ignore the strangeness of sitting at the same table as his master. It was easier to get accustomed to John and Ten, who at least were dressed more like him, and who he had not spent his whole life working for. 

“Now,” John said, bracing his hands at the edge of the table so he leaned slightly over the other three men. It would have been intimidating if he hadn’t been exuding an enthusiasm that was almost boyish. He looked at Taeyong. “Tell me of your dreams.” 

Taeyong swallowed and looked to Mister Jung again, who nodded at him as though to say, _I told you he can be trusted._ “It sounds mad…” Taeyong started, but the other three men just watched him expectantly and did not seem to think he was mad. “I have dreams, sometimes, and they… come to pass.” And he told them of his dream of the woman’s murder. 

“Hmm,” John said, leaning over and bracing his forearms on the table. “That does sound like Coveport.” He turned to Mister Jung. “I wrote to Aunt Margaret when I received your letter. She knows about dreaming, and about that city and the strange happenings there.” Taeyong frowned. _She knows about dreaming._ What could that mean? “There’s a man there,” John continued, addressing all of them now, “Victor Walrick, very powerful and has become very wealthy there in only a short time. Owns a number of factories, and controls much of Coveport’s shipping too. Considerable influence in the city, and corrupt, Aunt Margaret says. A bit too friendly with the local politicians and the police, not terribly concerned with the laws meant to protect his workers, or the people who used to live on the land he’s built factories on. Likely worse dealings than that that I don’t know of. Aunt Margaret has had some run-ins with him herself, though she hasn’t told me all the details. She owns a nice building there, a boarding house, and I think he wanted to buy it from her, wasn’t happy when she refused to sell. She has a fair number of connections in that place herself, and a family like ours isn’t one that Mr. Walrick could openly cross without consequences. But most people there aren’t in her position, and he hasn’t faced many obstacles in getting them off their property or paying them near nothing for their work. Practically runs the city now, and not much anyone can do about it.” 

“But, um, if I may, how does this man connect to what I’ve seen?” Taeyong asked hesitantly. 

“Ah, right,” John said. “The place has seen some hangings, suicides, you know. More than usual, and more in the years since Mr. Walrick’s arrival. Of course, his dealings don’t leave people happy. More than one business has gone under since he’s arrived and ruined them, which could certainly drive a person to do something like that. But Aunt Margaret isn’t sure that’s all it is. When Jaehyun and I visited as boys, that must have been around the time of Mr. Walrick’s arrival there, and I remember a man who worked in his factory had hung himself. They found him near the docks. A couple other factory workers had been found like that, and Aunt Margaret suspected the conditions in the factories were so terrible that people were dying, and Mr. Walrick was covering it up. But since then others have died, people who didn’t have such obvious connections to the factories, so it’s not so clear what’s going on. Aunt Margaret is careful though, a determined sort of woman when she sets her mind to something. I wrote to her, as I said, but we should wait for her reply before you travel on to see her. I think…” John turned and squinted out of the small window, frowning. “My sense is that there are many dealings in that city that Aunt Margaret has not disclosed to me. I don’t think it would be prudent to go there without her invitation, and without preparing her for what you’re looking into.” 

“When can we expect her reply?” Mister Jung asked. 

“She usually writes back promptly, although receiving correspondence here can be a bit delayed. But there’s a post station up the main road a ways. I’ll check every day, and would hope to hear something tomorrow, maybe the next day. If she says it’s alright you’ll be able to reach Coveport in an hour.” 

“Thank you for letting us stay here, while we wait,” Taeyong said. 

“It’s nice to have company,” said Ten. He’d been mostly quiet compared to John’s brimming energy and his voice now was steady and warm. 

“Exactly!” John said. “Could use come excitement out here. No offense meant, Ten, of course.” Ten just shook his head, amused. “And anyway, no need to thank us, any friend of Jaehyun’s is a friend of mine.” 

Taeyong glanced at Mister Jung. At Jaehyun, he tried to remind himself. There was that word again, _friend_. It made him uneasy. He was surprised when Mister Jung gave him a small, almost tentative smile, and then looked out the windows and said, “It’s nice here.” Taeyong watched him. It was nice here, quiet and sunny, and, for Taeyong, a break from his usual work. But he was surprised at the seriousness in Mister Jung’s tone when he was used to living in considerably more comfort than this. 

“So, you’re a writer?” Taeyong asked. This seemed like the sort of question one asked a new acquaintance, and if they would be stuck here waiting on a reply from the mysterious Aunt Margaret he supposed he might as well try to enjoy this rare departure from his routine. “And you’re a painter,” he added to Ten. 

“He’s a painter,” John said. “I’m not sure if I’m a writer. But my family leaves me be because I’m the third son of four and because they believe me when I say living out in the woods is good for inspiration. Which is is, I suppose. Certainly frees me from various tedious obligations.” 

“Yes, such a terrible life you’ve led,” Ten said dryly. 

“I didn’t say it was terrible. I said it was tedious, which it was, as Jaehyun I’m sure can attest to.” 

Mister Jung hummed noncommittally, and Ten looked at Taeyong with a skeptical expression. Again Taeyong felt that he was being included in some sort of joke, but he didn’t know enough about all the dynamics at play here to understand it. Ten must not have been wealthy himself. But then how had he ended up living here with John? Perhaps it was hard to understand because Taeyong had never met artists before, or anyone for that matter who didn’t live within the strict rules of society. 

They had lunch, which John prepared for them himself. When the meal was finished, Ten went outside to paint, and the other three men followed him, sitting in the shade around him. John and Mister Jung shared stories of their time at school, and Taeyong listened and watched the colors shift and take shape on Ten’s canvas. It was rare that Taeyong spent a day like this, with no demands on his time. Leisure wasn’t something he was familiar with, or comfortable with, but no one else seemed to note his discomfort and the conversation gradually drew him in. John was fascinated by his dreams, and Taeyong found it surprisingly comfortable to talk about them, though he was careful not to mention any dreams of Mister Jung. It also became apparent that Mister Jung remembered much more of their childhood together and the dreams Taeyong had had back then than Taeyong had imagined he would. 

In fact, as the afternoon wore on, Taeyong realized that a different Mister Jung was emerging than the one he’d always known at the estate. He laughed often, and with abandon, his head tipped back or his body rocking forward. When he laughed, Taeyong found that for the first time in years, he could recognize the child he had played with so long ago. Taeyong had not considered that Mister Jung had ever been tense before, at the estate. He’d always seemed simply aloof, especially with the servants. But he couldn’t remember ever seeing Mister Jung laugh like this even with his family. Though he supposed one might be different with one’s parents than with one’s friends. Taeyong didn’t have parents, and he didn’t exactly have friends, despite the care Cook and James and the others showed him, so he wasn’t entirely sure. 

At some point Taeyong drifted off in the warm summer afternoon. He didn’t sleep deeply enough to dream, and could hear the lively voices of the men around him as though at some great distance, but he was still grateful for the rest. He woke much later to Mister Jung shaking his shoulder and calling his name quietly. He startled when he realized who it was. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, I must’ve--” 

“It’s fine, Taeyong, and don’t call me ‘sir,’” Mister Jung said. “Did you dream?” Taeyong shook his head, trying to remind himself again that he could call the man by his first name here. “That’s good. Do you think… would you know if something happened to that woman, in reality?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” Taeyong said. He felt odd to be still sitting in the chair he’d fallen asleep in while Mister Jung stood beside him. “But I think the dream would stop coming.” 

“So, has it stopped?”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong said. “But even last night, I was able to sleep better than before. I think… it’s as though the dream knows, that I’m trying to do something to help her. It knows it’s gotten through to me, so it’s letting go a bit. But… I don’t really know how this all works. These dreams just… happen to me.” 

Mister Jung nodded thoughtfully, but only said, “It’s time for supper, come inside.” 

Supper was simple, as lunch had been, but flavorful and filling, and leisurely, like everything else about the day. John had ridden out to the post station while Taeyong had dozed, just in case a reply from his aunt had come especially fast, but there’d been nothing. 

After supper, John cleared space in the front room and arranged some makeshift pallets on the floor, and then he and Ten said goodnight and disappeared into the other room. Taeyong was still in the dusty clothes he’d worn all day, but he hesitated to take them off. 

“There’s a pump out back to wash up,” Mister Jung said. Taeyong nodded, but didn’t move from where he crouched next to his belongings near the empty fireplace. Mister Jung shrugged and disappeared outside, and Taeyong listened to the running water splashing on the ground. The blankets under his hands were soft and clearly good quality, and he couldn’t bear the thought of sullying them with his dirty clothes and skin, so he finally stood and went outside too. 

The night air was still, as the day had been, but full of noises: insects and owls, and toads from the stream, and the rustling of quieter creatures moving through the trees. Taeyong stopped and stood for a moment, enjoying the cooler air and the darkness. When he turned he could see Mister Jung some distance away at the pump. He’d removed his clothes and the pale skin of his back shone wetly in the starlight. Taeyong looked away, and waited until the water had stopped splashing and Mister Jung had gone back inside. He supposed Mister Jung must have seen him standing there as he passed, but if he did he didn’t say anything. 

Taeyong washed his face, and then removed his own clothes and scrubbed the dust out of them, crouching self-consciously beside the house, though only the horses were outside with him. He left his clothes hanging on the line and then slipped back into the house. Mister Jung appeared to already be asleep, and Taeyong pulled on some clean clothes and lay down under the blankets. The air in this house was fresher and cooler than in his room in the Jung manor, and he fell asleep quickly. 

_Taeyong is dreaming. Right away, he knows the dream isn’t the one he hates the most. He doesn’t see the city. Instead he’s in the bed again, the bed with the calico quilt. His dreamsense quickly fills him with pleasure. The person who holds him says his name against his neck, and Taeyong murmurs back. This time he doesn’t want the dream to end. He knows what he’ll see next, the dark building in the rain, and he wants to stay here in these strong arms forever. He knows whose arms they are. A name he still doesn’t allow himself to think, yet he moans it now, in the dream._

_“Jaehyun….”_

_It’s raining, and he is afraid. He’s in the dark building. The smell, the puddles, it’s all the same as it’s always been. And the body. That’s the same too. The arms that held him in a different dream, a different place, shown to him only seconds before, now lie still and stiff, and the dark puddle spreads along the ground as Taeyong drops to his knees. He’s too late. No. Jaehyun…._

When Taeyong woke, breathing through the nausea, he found his face was wet. He wiped his eyes quickly and turned his head. Jaehyun--Mister Jung was there, lying a few feet away, his chest rising and falling evenly. Alive. Taeyong stared at the ceiling. He realized he’d never had the dream before when Mister Jung had actually been present at the estate himself. And now he was seeing these things while the man slept only a few feet away, oblivious. It made him feel guilty, on top of the fear that always lingered from dreaming of death. He glanced over again, and for the first time, wondered. He didn’t fully understand all he’d seen, in the part of the dream in the bed, before he was plunged into the dark and the rain. But he knew it felt good. And it felt good because of Jaehyun, because of how he touched and held him. Why would his dreamsense ever show him something like this? It felt unimaginable, even now, after seeing it so many times. It was impossible that Mister Jung would ever do such a thing, to him. That he would ever say his name like that _._ But heat spread over Taeyong’s skin at the memory of it. He covered his face with his hands, pressing into his eyes, trying to erase the images there. This was madness. He could stop this, he had to stop this. 

He rolled onto his side, away from Mister Jung, and willed himself back to sleep. This time the only dream that waited for him was the dream of the woman, but he almost felt relieved when it took him, because it meant she still lived. And when it ran its course, his dreamsense once again let him truly sleep.

The next morning Taeyong woke early, while everyone else was still asleep. He got up, dressed, and moved his bedding carefully to a corner of the room, and then set about preparing breakfast from the food he found in the kitchen. As the sun climbed, and the others woke and ate and started the day, it was clear it would be even hotter than the day before. Although the woods were cooler than the open land around the Jung estate, they were all quietly sweating by the time they finished the meal. 

“We should swim,” John announced. “I’ll head to the post station after midday--there won’t be anything there at this hour anyway. But it’s too hot to survive the morning without a swim.” He stood and clapped Mister Jung on the shoulder and coaxed them all outside. 

“I’m going to paint,” Ten said, and he set himself up at his easel in the shade as John and Mister Jung continued down the slope. 

“I’ll stay here, too,” Taeyong said, more for Ten to hear than for the others.

But John turned around and yelled back at him, “Taeyong, you too! The water’s beautiful, you have to see before you leave here!” Taeyong didn’t quite know how to refuse. 

Ten nodded to him, smiling reassuringly as though he sensed Taeyong’s discomfort. “You should join them. I don’t need the company, although if you really want to stay here you’re welcome. But I live here and can swim any time I like, you shouldn’t miss the chance.” 

“Well, maybe I’ll just go sit by the water,” Taeyong said, trying to match Ten’s easy tone, and he took off his shoes and walked down the sunny slope. The grass was warm under his feet. 

When he reached the edge of the stream the two other men had already stripped down to their undershorts and were wading into the water. Taeyong watched them as they shouted and laughed from the cold, but didn’t move to join them. He was struck by how at ease they were, how comfortable they were in their own bodies, in their youth and beauty. Taeyong knew he was strong himself, he had to be, to do the work he did. But he’d always been slim. He’d never thought much about this before, but in the face of so much robust health he felt suddenly small and self-conscious, uncertain of his own lean muscles and narrow body. 

And more than that, he felt uncomfortable watching the easy friendship the two young men in the water clearly shared. Taeyong had never had this type of careless ease with another person. Or perhaps he had, with Mister Jung himself, when they’d both been very young. But that ease between them was long gone. Although he’d caught glimpses of that child in Mister Jung again since they’d arrived here--of the Jaehyun he’d been friends with--he still felt uncertain. 

“Taeyong, come in, the water’s lovely,” John called. Taeyong realized both of them were watching him, John grinning as usual, Mister Jung’s face unreadable. 

“I’m alright here,” Taeyong tried. 

“Nonsense! It’s brutally hot out there, you must be suffering,” John called. 

“Well, I--I don’t know how to swim,” Taeyong said.

“You don’t need to swim, only to stand!” John yelled. “It’s shallow, look. Even Jaehyun can stand.” Mister Jung shoved him and he laughed. 

Taeyong stepped closer to the water, and dipped his toes in. The water swirled over his foot, cold and refreshing, and the sweaty back of his neck tingled with how nice it felt. “Alright,” he said finally, to himself. He unbuttoned his shirt, focusing his eyes carefully on his fingers so he wouldn’t need to see the well-muscled bodies of the other two men while he exposed his own slim frame. When he had undressed, he laid his pants and shirt carefully out on the sunny bank so the sweat would dry, and stepped down into the water. He stumbled at the edge of the bank and landed with a splash, but kept his footing. 

“Careful,” called John, as he tipped himself back in the water and started floating on his back. Taeyong thought he looked more at ease in that moment than any person he’d ever seen. 

The water came up to Taeyong’s knees and swirled by, rushing against his skin and cooling it. The trees stretched out over the water and covered the surface with a flickering pattern of sunlight and shade. Taeyong could see straight through the water to the bed of smooth rocks along the bottom.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” John’s voice floated lazily over the water from where he’d drifted a short distance away with the gentle current. 

“Yes,” Taeyong said, and he meant it, though he didn’t think John could hear him. It was quiet here, just the sound of the water and the low buzz of insects. There wasn’t even a breeze to whisper through the leaves. The rest of the world felt very far away. Even Coveport and the threat of the woman’s death had lost its urgency. It didn’t seem as though anything bad could penetrate a place such as this. 

Taeyong looked over to Mister Jung, who was near the middle of the stream, where the water reached his chest. Mister Jung was watching him, and with another twist of self-consciousness Taeyong realized his eyes were on his body. But then he gave another of those hesitant smiles, and beckoned to Taeyong to walk out farther. 

When Taeyong drew near Mister Jung he realized he must have been kneeling in the water, because the water only reached Taeyong’s stomach. He looked down at the other man for a moment, and then suddenly with a flick of his hand Mister Jung sent a shower of water at Taeyong. Taeyong yelped and stepped backwards, startled as much by the playful gesture as by the cold droplets of water. His foot slipped over a rock, and he lost his balance, his breath catching with fear as the water rose around him--

Mister Jung stood and caught him before he went under, his arm strong around Taeyong’s back. “Oh! Mister Jung, I’m sorry, sir, I--” Taeyong tried to step away but Mister Jung didn’t immediately let him go. 

“I told you, you don’t need to call me that,” he said, and there was a flicker of something in his eyes that looked almost sad. He let Taeyong go then, but didn’t move away. 

“Oh, right, er, Jaehyun… I… forgot.” The name felt strange in his mouth. He thought of how easily he’d called it out in his dream, and looked away, forcing the images out of his mind, shocked at himself for even thinking of such things with the man right in front of him. 

“You can’t swim?” Jaehyun asked. Taeyong shook his head. “Try putting your head under. It’s easy, I promise. Just hold your breath. You can even open your eyes here, the water’s so clean.” 

Taeyong looked down, through the water at his legs and feet, distorted by the current. He wondered how it would look, to be underwater, like the small fish that flitted around, their scales reflecting in the sunlight. 

“Here, like this, look,” Jaehyun said, and he took a breath and suddenly disappeared under the surface. Taeyong stared at his blurred shape under the water, surrounded by bubbles that rose to the surface. When he stood up again he shook his head madly like a dog, spraying water everywhere, and Taeyong flinched backwards again, but found himself smiling too. “Come on, try it, we can go under together. Nothing will happen to you.” Jaehyun took Taeyong’s arm, and Taeyong took a deep breath, and then sank down under the water to crouch low under the surface. The cool water surrounded him, and the sounds of the day disappeared. He felt Jaehyun squeeze his arm, and after a fearful second, he opened his eyes onto a strange and beautiful world. It was blurry, not like seeing in the air, even though the water had appeared crystal clear from above. But he could still see. Shafts of sunlight cut down through the water, and everywhere around him was a shimmer of browns and greens and blues. Silt rose from the bottom around their feet, and Jaehyun’s dark hair floated around his head. It was surreal, under the water, and it was surreal to see Jaehyun like this, right in front of him in this silent world. He really did not seem like Mister Jung now at all. 

Some air slipped past Taeyong’s lips, and bubbles rose in front of his face, bright in the sunlight, startling him into letting out more air. He stood up suddenly, spluttering and blinking and pushing his wet hair out of his eyes. When he could see, he saw Jaehyun was standing too and watching him again carefully as though he wanted to read every expression on Taeyong’s face. Taeyong looked away and saw John float past them, towards the opposite bank, lifting his head and waving as he drifted. Taeyong waved back, smiling. For this moment, at least, it felt like he could be friends with these men, even if that friendship wouldn’t last beyond the bounds of this secluded wood. 

“You can float like that too,” Jaehyun said, following Taeyong’s eyes. “It’s pleasant, with the current.” 

“Oh, no,” Taeyong said firmly. “I’ll sink.” Ducking his head underwater with his feet still on the rocky bottom of the stream was one thing, but drifting off in the current was quite another. 

“You won’t. John’s twice your size and he’s floating. Everybody floats.” 

“No, you both learned to swim. And he looks very strong.” 

“You’re strong, I’ve seen you,” Jaehyun said. Taeyong looked at him, surprised. But he continued as though he hadn’t said anything unusual. “Anyway, floating has absolutely nothing to do with strength. It’s about… letting go. Come, I’ll help you.” 

Taeyong was nervous, and it took multiple tries before he was finally able to let himself stretch out on the surface of the water. The first few times, the feeling of the water lapping at his temples made him panic and jolt and sink under. But Jaehyun pulled him up each time, and finally Taeyong found himself lying flat, with Jaehyun’s palm steady under his back. He was still tense, and could feel all of his muscles flex against the water’s gentle movement around him. 

“You can still breathe,” Jaehyun said, his voice distorted by the water over Taeyong’s ears. “Lift your chest, fill it with air.” He tapped Taeyong’s sternum. Taeyong had never had to think about how to breathe before, and it took a moment before he could tell his chest to lift and his lungs to fill with air. “That’s it.” Jaehyun’s hand shifted against Taeyong’s back, and when he realized he was pulling it away, he startled and reached out. His hand found warm skin and firm muscle and he clutched at the solidity of it, his mind consumed only with the need to keep floating, so that even the wrongness of holding Mister Jung’s naked waist didn’t make him let go. 

Jaehyun laughed gently and laid his own hand over Taeyong’s against his side. He was no longer holding up his back. “You’re fine, you’re floating, see?” he said. Taeyong’s heart was pounding painfully in his chest, but he reminded himself to breathe, and keep his chest lifted, and told himself he was okay. He still dug his fingers into Jaehyun’s side unthinkingly, but then Jaehyun pulled his hand away, and freed his fingers when Taeyong tried to grip his hand instead, and then Taeyong was alone in the water. 

As he drifted, he found that it was in fact easier to float when he made himself relax, and after some time this wasn’t so difficult to do. The water was cool and the sunlight that flickered over him was warm. The sky was painfully blue but the leafy branches over the stream diminished the violent brightness of it. He could only hear the water, and his own blood pumping steadily within him. The current moved him slowly along, and he let himself go. 

After some time, the branches above Taeyong thinned and the sun caught him in the eyes. He squinted and lifted his head, looking back towards where Jaehyun had been standing, but he wasn’t there, and Taeyong realized he’d drifted farther downstream than he’d meant to. His heart quickened again and he put his feet down. But they didn’t immediately touch the bottom. His breath caught with fear and he stretched his feet out. This time they brushed over the rocks below, though it still seemed deep. 

“You can still stand.” Taeyong whipped his head around and saw Jaehyun there, swimming beside him and smiling a little. “You’re okay.” 

Taeyong stretched his feet down again and this time they landed more firmly on the rocks below. The water came to his collarbones here, and the change in depth had thrown him, but Jaehyun was right, he could stand. He laughed sheepishly and pushed the wet hair back from his forehead, feeling slightly embarrassed. But Jaehyun’s smile didn’t seem to be at his expense. He simply looked… happy. Taeyong supposed he wasn’t the only one affected by the beauty of the place, though Jaehyun must have seen so many more beautiful places in his life that Taeyong could only imagine.

Taeyong looked around. “Where’s John?” 

Jaehyun pointed, and when Taeyong followed the gesture he saw John sitting with Ten in the shade behind their house. They’d all entered the water slightly upstream of the house, and now had gone past it, but Taeyong was relieved that it was still clearly visible. 

“Shall we get out?” Jaehyun asked. 

Taeyong nodded, and they made their way over to the bank, Jaehyun swimming and Taeyong managing to walk with some difficulty through the deep water. The bank was steeper at this point in the stream, and Taeyong had to scramble up in a rather undignified way, but he managed. When he turned around, kneeling in the grass, Jaehyun was climbing up after him. Taeyong reached out a hand and Jaehyun only hesitated for a moment before he gripped it tightly and let Taeyong haul him up the slope onto the grass. 

“See?” Jaehyun said, grinning. “I knew you were strong.” And he flopped back onto the grass, spreading his arms and legs wide, oblivious to the way Taeyong’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment at the compliment. 

Taeyong sat there in the shade, and glanced at Jaehyun who lay beyond the cover of shade with his eyes squeezed shut against the bright sunlight. He tried not to keep looking at him, but it was hard not to. It was so easy for him to take up so much space, Taeyong thought, eyes following the long stretch of his arms and the way his legs splayed open so that his body filled almost the entire patch of sunlight. Droplets of water glittered blindingly across his pale chest and clung to the startlingly dark hair under his arms and trailing down from his navel. The wet fabric of his undershorts clung to his thighs and to the heavy swell between his legs. Taeyong looked away and pulled his knees to his chest. He couldn’t imagine being so carefree with his own body. He couldn’t imagine letting himself take up so much space. 

Taeyong’s wet skin cooled quickly in the shade and soon he started shivering. 

“You’re cold,” Jaehyun said. Taeyong jumped and looked over again. Jaehyun’s eyes were open and he shaded his face from the sun and squinted up at Taeyong. “Come into the sun.” 

“Oh, um, I think I’ll go inside,” Taeyong said, and stood up quickly. He still couldn’t quite get used to speaking to Jaehyun like this. It was as though every time they spoke, Taeyong slowly allowed himself to grow comfortable with the friendliness. But then after a few moments passed, he’d lose his comfort, and have to start all over again with the next conversation. 

“As you wish,” Jaehyun said easily. He dropped his hand and closed his eyes again. 

Taeyong walked up the bank to get his clothes and then headed inside. Ten’s easel sat in the shade, unattended now, and Taeyong looked at it for a moment and admired the colors. When he walked inside he could barely see at first after the blinding sunlight, but he found his way to the other side of the room and started to dress. He’d just pulled on his shirt when he heard a noise and looked up, thinking someone might have come in, but no one was there. The door to the bedroom was ajar, and Taeyong could see the edge of a finished painting through it. He started buttoning up his shirt, stepping closer to the door to get a better look at the painting, but then he stopped short as something blocked his view. It took him a moment to realize it was John. His back was to the door, and he was still only in the undershorts he’d swam in. His hair was damp and dripped down the back of his neck. And then Taeyong registered, belatedly, what he was truly seeing, because Ten was there too, mostly hidden behind John’s body, but his arms were around him, and his fingers dug into the muscles of his back, and they were kissing. Taeyong stood frozen for a moment, but then one of them made a noise, a low murmur. Taeyong couldn’t understand what was said, if it was even words, but the meaning was perfectly clear. Ten’s hands slid lower down John’s back--

Taeyong wrenched his eyes away and hurried outside as silently as he could. He closed the door of the house carefully behind him, and then just stood for a moment, staring at the stream but not really seeing it. He felt guilty and embarrassed; he knew that was something he should not have seen. He didn’t think that was something the two of them should have been doing together at all. But this, Taeyong realized, was one of the missing pieces he had not quite understood about this place. This was why the two of them were living out here, together. They were even sleeping in the same room. Taeyong felt that perhaps he should have suspected this before now, but he simply hadn’t thought of this possibility. 

He sank down into one of the chairs in the shade behind the house. He hadn’t imagined this, and yet wasn’t what he’d just seen not so different from what his dreamsense showed him doing, time and time again, with Jaehyun? Taeyong had not ever really connected what he’d seen in that dream to things that might happen in reality, and certainly not to things that _other_ people might do, simply because they wanted to, and not because they were tangled up in cursed dreams as he was. He looked down the grassy slope to where Jaehyun still lay in the distance, at the water’s edge. The sun had shifted and he was half hidden in shade now, but he didn’t seem to have stirred at all. Taeyong wondered if Jaehyun knew about this. He was close friends with John. But would a man confide something like this even to a friend? 

Taeyong leaned back in the chair and tried not to think about what he’d seen, or about what might now be happening inside the house. The swim had tired him, and the heat in the air made him drowsy, and after some time he drifted off to sleep. He dreamed, but they were only ordinary dreams, that anyone might have, born of memory, or worry, or desire. 

Taeyong woke up later to the noise of voices coming from the house; the door was open again behind him. Jaehyun was no longer lying on the grass, and when Taeyong went inside he found him sitting with Ten at the table, in the midst of a lively conversation. 

“Oh, you’re up. We didn’t want to wake you, but we saved you some food,” Ten said, smiling. 

Taeyong sat down and focused carefully on the food. He found he couldn’t quite look Ten in the eye. 

“John went to see if Aunt Margaret’s reply arrived,” Jaehyun said, and Taeyong nodded without looking up. He hoped it had, and that she would say they could come. They’d be able to leave that same afternoon. The fact that he wanted to leave made him feel guiltier, as John and Ten had been nothing but welcoming. But he’d barely started to find his footing around these men, who were not his equals but treated him as though they were, and now he felt he’d been thrown off balance even more severely than before. 

However, when John returned, there had still been no reply from his aunt, so Taeyong spent the afternoon with the rest of them, trying to remember how to converse, trying not to let on that he felt embarrassed and strange. He didn’t think John or Ten noticed anything was amiss, but he caught Jaehyun looking at him curiously more than once. 

That evening John went to the post station yet again, after grumbling good-naturedly that he’d never had to make so many trips there and that the post master was bound to be suspicious. The other three stayed behind and prepared supper. This time when John returned, he came in waving a letter. 

“The trusty post service has passed through yet again, reaching even our humble dwelling with news of the wide world,” John announced dramatically. Ten and Jaehyun both shook their heads at him and Taeyong found himself smiling in spite of himself. John opened and letter and scanned it, his face brightening as he did. “She writes that you are welcome to join her. ‘The boarding house is full this season, but you’ll most certainly have a place here….’ Talking about meeting you as a boy, Jaehyun, how very charming you were, etc., etc., and yes, here, ‘I am very interested in speaking further with your friends about what you mentioned in your letter, my dear John. I will not include my thoughts on the matter in writing here, but trust there will be much for us to discuss.’” John looked up. “See, she does not want to even write about it. Dark dealings in Coveport, as I told you. Anyway, she said she’ll expect you tomorrow morning.” 

“Not tonight?” Taeyong said, before he could help himself. 

“No,” John said seriously. “I do not think it would be wise to arrive there at night, two strangers such as yourselves. Of course, strange men come and go all the time in that place, with the shipping and the factories, but… better to wait until morning. Now,” he smiled again, “What fine food has my staff here prepared for the evening?” 

Ten swatted at John with a towel, and the normal bustle in the kitchen resumed as they set about their supper. 

That night when John and Ten retired to their room Taeyong couldn’t stop his face from burning. He’d managed to enjoy supper--really he’d been finding that it was very difficult not to enjoy spending time here, with John’s brightness and Ten’s steady calm. But this reminder of what he’d discovered earlier about their hosts brought back all his embarrassment. 

When he was settled on the blankets on the floor, Jaehyun surprised him by speaking. “Are you well?” 

“What?” Taeyong looked over at him. The room was dark, but there was something calming about it. The noises of the insects and animals outside filtered in through the windows along with a gentle breeze, and the heat of the day had dissipated somewhat. Jaehyun was just a dim shape on the floor some distance away, and his features were hard to make out, though his dark eyes caught the light. 

“You’ve been odd, this afternoon.” 

Taeyong wasn’t sure what to make of this confirmation that Jaehyun had noticed--that Jaehyun knew him well enough to notice such a thing. “It’s just… the heat,” Taeyong said. 

“I don’t believe that,” Jaehyun said bluntly. He didn’t sound upset. “Did you not enjoy the swim, this morning? Perhaps I should have let you be, I know you were nervous.” 

“No, no, that’s not it. The swim was… lovely.” Taeyong trailed off and looked at the ceiling, curiosity gnawing up through him. He lowered his voice to a whisper and directed his question at the roof above him. “Did you know, that John and Ten… they live here like…” Taeyong faltered, his cheeks burning. “They live as though they’re man and wife?” he managed to finish, his whisper barely more than a breath. It was quiet, and Taeyong risked a glance at Jaehyun. His eyes were still open and watching him, his face hidden by the dimness. “Did you not know?” With a sudden twist of guilt Taeyong wondered what would happen if Jaehyun truly had not known this about his friend, and he was opening his mouth already to say something that would obscure what he’d meant, when Jaehyun answered him.

“Yes, of course I know.” His voice was very steady, where Taeyong’s had faltered. “They’re my friends, and they don’t hide who they are. I’m surprised you didn’t notice sooner.” 

Taeyong stared at him. “Of course I didn’t notice. Men don’t… it didn’t even occur to me.” 

“Well, why did it occur to you then, finally?” Taeyong could hear what sounded like amusement in Jaehyun’s voice, and this only surprised him more. How could he be so unconcerned?

“...I saw them,” whispered Taeyong. 

“Saw them?” 

“They were… embracing.” Taeyong couldn’t make himself be more specific. 

“Ah.” It was quiet for some time, but every time Taeyong glanced over he could see Jaehyun’s eyes reflecting in the dim light, and finally he spoke again, sounding more serious. “But surely you must have known that there are men like this. And women, too. People talk, don’t they, even up at the estate. And it wouldn’t be so condemned if it didn’t exist, and people didn’t fear it.” 

Taeyong frowned, uncertain. He supposed he had heard of this. And of course, he’d even dreamed it. But he hadn’t quite connected it all together. His dream, as much as it worried him, didn’t seem to match the horrible things people sometimes said. And remembering the way John and Ten had held each other, he couldn’t quite equate that with the things people whispered about either. “I knew, I suppose, but I didn’t think it would be like this.” 

Suddenly moonlight shifted into one of the windows and brightened the room with its pale glow. Taeyong could make out Jaehyun’s face now, but the expression he wore was complicated and even the light didn’t help him guess what he might be thinking. 

Finally, Jaehyun spoke again, very softly. “It’s not always like this. Most people never get to have this with the person they love. Even when it’s a man and a woman, and they’re truly married.” 

Taeyong considered this. It was true that John and Ten seemed happy here. But they must have had to give things up, to live here together, beyond the judgment of society. 

“What about you, and Miss Elizabeth?” Taeyong asked.

“What?” Jaehyun sounded genuinely surprised.

“Don’t your parents wish the two of you to marry?”

“I don’t love Elizabeth,” Jaehyun said, although this did not have anything to do with Taeyong’s question. 

“Does she love you?” 

“I sincerely doubt it,” he said dryly. “She’s quite intelligent though, enough to know the match would be advantageous to both of us, and enough not to let something as frivolous as feelings get in the way of something beneficial. I’m not so sure I’m quite as smart as that.” 

Taeyong wasn’t sure what to make of this, so he didn’t say anything. It struck him suddenly that he was speaking like this, of love, to Jaehyun, who had only been Mister Jung to him until the day before. But he wasn’t struck so much by the strangeness of having this conversation with such an unlikely person, as he was by the fact that he’d never had a conversation like this with anyone. He’d been well taken care of, but he’d never had anyone to speak to about such inner mysteries as thoughts and feelings. 

He’d gotten so lost in his own thoughts that Jaehyun’s voice startled him when it broke through the silence again, although it was barely more than a whisper. “I’ve told you John and I were very close at school.” 

“Yes,” Taeyong said. Jaehyun didn’t speak again, just watched him intensely, and it slowly dawned on Taeyong what Jaehyun might be trying to tell him. He couldn’t be sure, but the look on Jaehyun’s face did not make him think his assumption was wrong. He looked as though he was willing Taeyong to understand him. Taeyong’s heart beat faster. He couldn’t believe this about Jaehyun, who had always seemed so upstanding and perfect, and more than that he couldn’t believe Jaehyun would admit such a thing to _him_. 

Taeyong looked up at the ceiling, avoiding the intensity in Jaehyun’s gaze. He wondered about the extent of their closeness, if they’d held each other the way John and Ten had, if they’d kissed, if they’d done more than that…. Taeyong stopped his imagination firmly there. He wasn’t sure how he felt about any of this. He didn’t even know what it was like to kiss someone, but Jaehyun almost certainly did, and this too made him feel unaccountably strange. 

“It was just a foolish, brief thing,” Jaehyun continued, his tone lighter now. “You know, we were boys. It wasn’t this,” he gestured at the house around them, “it wasn’t this kind of love.” 

Taeyong kept his eyes on the ceiling and tried to slow his heart and his thoughts. Half of his thoughts seemed to be questions, things he wanted to ask Jaehyun but didn’t think he really wanted to know, so he pushed them out of his mind. Jaehyun was such a different person than he’d imagined, not only because of what he’d just told him. Everything about who he was since they’d set out on this strange journey seemed different than the man Taeyong had always believed him to be at the estate. But Taeyong wasn’t certain yet which version of Jaehyun was more real. He wanted to let himself be friends with this man that was lying next to him in the dark, but he still remembered what had happened when he’d befriended Jaehyun as a boy, and he couldn’t quite believe that wouldn’t happen again. 

“Have you ever been in love?” Jaehyun’s quiet voice broke through Taeyong’s thoughts again.

“No! Never, of course not,” Taeyong said, a bit louder than he’d meant to. He glanced at the door of John and Ten’s bedroom but all was silent. 

Jaehyun chuckled quietly. “Why ‘of course not’? Why is that so impossible?” 

“I spend my time surrounded by old men and women, Jaehyun, who would I fall in love with?” 

Jaehyun laughed again, but said, “That’s not true. The maids are young. Lucy’s young, and seems to like you.” 

“Lucy likes everyone, and is barely more than a child,” Taeyong said sternly. He realized as he said this that it wasn’t exactly true, she was likely only a year or so younger than Jaehyun, but Taeyong had never thought of her that way even once, or any of the other staff. “I barely went to school, I didn’t make friends with people my own age, let alone meet someone to fall in love with.” 

Jaehyun stopped laughing and looked at him again, and Taeyong hated the thought that the look might be one of pity. 

“I should have been your friend,” Jaehyun said quietly. 

Taeyong’s eyes widened in shock for a moment, and then bitterness rose in him so fast it surprised him. “That would have been impossible, don’t say things you don’t mean.” He managed to keep the anger out of his voice. The nerve Jaehyun had, to say something like this, when it was years too late. Did he expect Taeyong to reassure him that there were no hard feelings and soothe his misguided remorse? 

Jaehyun rolled onto his side towards him, expression earnest, but this only grated at Taeyong even more. “I do mean it,” he said. “I should have--”

“I’m tired,” Taeyong said coldly. “Good night, sir.” He rolled away to face the wall. It took him a long time to relax enough to sleep. When he did, the woman was waiting for him, to be murdered before his eyes. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jaehyun turned. “Well, I suppose we should look for the clocktower.”_
> 
> _Taeyong nodded and stared down the street. “I think we’ll find it,” he said, mostly to himself._
> 
> _“Is this the place then?”_
> 
> _“It feels like it….” Taeyong could sense Jaehyun watching him closely, the way he always did when they spoke of his dreaming._

The next morning when Taeyong opened his eyes, the sun was slanting far into the room and the small house had already gotten uncomfortably warm. He sat up with a start; it was already late morning. Jaehyun was still asleep next to him and he frowned, surprised that no one had woken up, although he supposed Jaehyun might not be used to early mornings. He got up and washed at the pump outside, then packed his belongings and folded up his bedding. When he finished, the door to the bedroom finally opened and Ten came out. 

“You both slept late, we didn’t want to wake you,” he said. 

“Thank you.” Taeyong found that his discomfort from the day before had mostly disappeared and he smiled as John emerged from the room too. He would have liked to already be on their way to Coveport, but he had to admit he felt better rested than he had in a while. 

Jaehyun finally woke up as the house filled with noise, and Taeyong turned away to help Ten prepare breakfast. Although his discomfort with John and Ten had dissipated, his coolness towards Jaehyun had not. He wasn’t sure why Jaehyun’s comment the night before bothered him so much, but it did. It made him think of all the years that he’d passed on the estate, treating Jaehyun with only careful respect even though the memory of their ended friendship still hurt and confused him. The only thing that had consoled him was the realization that it had always been inevitable that their friendship would end: gentlemen simply were not friends with their servants. But Jaehyun’s expression of regret now, after all this time, felt too personal and emotional for a situation that Taeyong had convinced himself was simply a fact of life and society. 

No one moved with much urgency that morning, as the day grew as hot as the one before it. Traveling would be miserable, and Taeyong could feel that neither of them were terribly eager to mount their horses and set off under the glaring sun. But finally, when breakfast could no longer be used as an excuse to linger, they finished gathering their things, and went outside to prepare the horses. 

John and Ten followed them out and after some fussing over the horses they were ready to depart. John hugged Jaehyun goodbye tightly and then surprised Taeyong by hugging him as well, so hard he lifted his feet fully off the ground. Taeyong could feel himself blushing when he was set back down. He hadn’t ever been hugged like that before, by anyone, but John seemed to think nothing of it so he didn’t want to admit that it had moved him. Ten gave him a much gentler hug, once again giving Taeyong a look that suggested he understood the things Taeyong wasn’t saying, and then he and Jaehyun mounted their horses, and headed back into the woods towards the main road that would take them to Coveport. 

The road was shaded at first, but soon it widened and the trees receded, leaving them in full sunlight. It was an oppressive sort of light, which made Taeyong drowsy even though he knew he’d slept more than usual. The horses walked slowly over the dusty road, and the increasing number of travelers they passed as they approached the city gave them only tired nods. It was unusually quiet for such a busy road, but Taeyong appreciated that the stupor that settled over every living creature in this heat gave him an excuse to ride along beside Jaehyun in silence. Jaehyun made a few attempts at conversation himself, but soon gave up. Taeyong didn’t have the energy to try to decide if Jaehyun was more wary of him after the night before, or if the sun had finally drained his energy too.

The horses’ slowness meant it took them longer to arrive than they’d expected, but they still reached the outskirts of the city by midday. The buildings alongside the road multiplied, and then they were passing through crowds of people, carriages, trolleys, and horses on dirty paved roads. Taeyong had never been in such a large and busy place before. He was struck first by the stench, which was so terrible in the heat that it seemed he could taste it even when he stopped breathing through his nose. It felt very far from the airy cottage he’d woken up in only a few hours before. But there was an edge of anticipation to it all even so. The heat-induced haze he’d been in on the road disappeared and he stared around him, trying to take in all the buildings and people, trying to see if any of the women looked familiar. 

They managed to find John’s aunt’s boarding house easily enough from the directions he’d written down for them before they’d left. The street it was on was quieter, and the briny saltwater smell Taeyong remembered from his dream was more noticeable here. They dismounted and stared up at the building. It was simple and made of brick, three stories tall, and a small sign near the door said East Coveport Boarding House in neat letters. They left their horses with the boy in the small stables at the side of the building, and then went up the front steps. 

It took several moments for the door to open after Jaehyun knocked, and when it did a short woman who was much too young to be John’s aunt stood there facing them. “Good day,” she said briskly. “We’ll have one bunk open starting tonight in a common dorm room, and one private room, priced accordingly, of course.” 

“Oh, thank you miss, but we’ve actually come to call upon the lady who owns this establishment.” The girl gave them a skeptical look which somehow, although she didn’t do anything so brash as look them up and down, seemed to fully take in every speck of dust on their clothes and streak of dirty sweat across their brows. “We are friends of her nephew,” Jaehyun continued awkwardly. 

“Hm. One moment.” The girl disappeared into the house and closed the door. Jaehyun looked at Taeyong with his eyebrows raised in surprise. Taeyong thought he probably wasn’t used to having to ask for things twice. 

When the door opened again, the girl was back, but this time she invited them inside. “I’ve been  _ instructed _ ,” she began, making it very clear what she thought of these instructions, “to give one of you the private room, and one of you the bunk, and not charge either of you, as  _ friends _ of Miss Margaret’s nephew. They’ll be prepared later this afternoon, so you should return then.”

“Ah, thank you miss, but we only need the one room,” Jaehyun said. Taeyong glanced at him. 

“It isn’t a double room,” the girl said. 

“I can sleep on the floor,” Jaehyun said easily, as if this was not at all a strange suggestion, especially coming as it did from a man who despite his dusty clothing was clearly not of the class of men who typically stayed here. “We wouldn’t want to take up so much of your space, what with Miss Margaret’s generosity.” 

The girl still seemed skeptical, but clearly the idea of still being able to charge another man for the remaining bunk appealed to her. “Very well. Return later, and the room will be available, and suitable for two people, I suppose. Miss Margaret said she apologizes for not being able to welcome you at the moment, but she will be able to greet you at supper. Supper’s served a 6 o’clock sharp, every day.” 

“Very good, thank you for your kindness, miss.” Jaehyun inclined his head and the two of them retreated out the front door. Taeyong’s skin was starting to itch from the dust and sweat, and he realized how much he’d been looking forward to a chance to wash and change his clothes. Jaehyun turned to him. “Well, I suppose we should look for the clocktower.”

Taeyong nodded and stared down the street. “I think we’ll find it,” he said, mostly to himself. 

“Is this the place then?” 

“It feels like it….” Taeyong could sense Jaehyun watching him closely, the way he always did when they spoke of his dreaming. 

They walked down the street and turned onto a larger one. It was busy and loud, and they didn’t speak as they walked. After they’d gone on for a few minutes, Taeyong realized that Jaehyun had been subtly following him the entire time, walking a pace behind. He stopped and turned around, frowning quizzically up at the other man. 

“What’s wrong?” Jaehyun asked. 

“Sir, why are you following me? I don’t know where we’re going any better than you do.” 

“You seemed to,” Jaehyun said, and that watchful look was in his eyes again, like he was trying to read something in Taeyong’s face that would reveal a clue to how he was able to dream the way he did. “And I told you, you don’t have to call me that.” 

Taeyong looked away. “It’s best if I do.” At the end of this street he could see the water, or rather, he could see the sun reflecting so brightly it must have been off the water. 

A hand landed on his shoulder, then just as suddenly disappeared. Taeyong didn’t turn around. “Please,” Jaehyun said behind him, his voice close. “Don’t. You don’t have to… like me, I understand that. But just call me Jaehyun.” 

Taeyong’s jaw twitched and he didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure why Jaehyun cared about this at all, and yet at the same time he felt he couldn’t have explained how many complicated feelings had become tied up in such simple things as forms of address. “We should go that way,” he said. He wasn’t sure how he knew, or how he’d known to walk this way so far, but Jaehyun had not been wrong: he did seem to know where he was going. Taeyong didn’t want to think too deeply about what it meant that his dreamsense seemed to be increasingly present even when he was awake these days. Hopefully they would find this woman, and save her, and everything would return to normal for them both. 

They walked in the direction Taeyong had indicated, down a narrow alley between rows of houses, and then the alley abruptly ended at a wide street, and there was the clocktower. It rose up in front of them on the other side of the street, and they both stopped and tipped their heads back to look at it. Taeyong felt strange, almost dizzy, seeing the clock from below, when he’d seen it from above so many times. The sight of it filled him with the fear he always felt when the dream started.

He looked down, at the building below, and realized it was not simply empty, it was almost ruined. The walls were blackened as though from a fire, and the bricks crumbled in some places. Most of the windows were boarded up, but through some that were not Taeyong could see that the entire interior of the building appeared to have been demolished. All that was left was the brick shell of the outer walls, and the magnificent clock above, which was pristine. He thought the sight would have been less unnerving if the clock had also been in ruins. 

Taeyong looked around the street. Except for the burned building under the clocktower, this street was cleaner and nicer than most of the others they’d seen. There were shops with colorful displays behind the windows, and offices with gilded signs announcing lawyers and shipping companies. Behind them stood an elegant hotel with flags flying beside the entryway. Well-dressed men and women walked along at a leisurely pace. Only the building below the clocktower marred the pleasant scene, but no one else seemed to take any notice of it. 

“Strange,” Jaehyun voiced Taeyong’s own thoughts. “This is the place, then. She’s here.” 

“Or she will be here, someday. I saw the clocktower, but I don’t know anything that’s actually helpful.” Taeyong could hear the bitterness in his tone. 

“But this dream was so… urgent,” Jaehyun said, looking at Taeyong earnestly. “Most of your dreams aren’t like that, are they?” Taeyong shook his head begrudgingly. “She must be here already. It will probably happen soon.” 

Taeyong didn’t want to agree with Jaehyun about something that was pure speculation, but he had to admit it felt true. “Perhaps we should… look near the docks, too.” Taeyong did not want to look near the docks. Jaehyun glanced at him as though he suspected Taeyong’s reluctance, but he only nodded. 

They walked down the street towards the water, but when they reached the docks it quickly became apparent that the place where the woman was murdered was not a place that would stand out as the clocktower had. Warehouses stretched in a row as far as the eyes could see, facing the controlled chaos of the busy port. Ships filled the harbor, and men were everywhere, loading and unloading cargo, and seeing to repairs. Taeyong stared down the row and found he did not have any sense anymore of where to go. He’d only seen the building where the woman died from the inside, and from here they all looked the same. He wondered why the dreamsense which had vaguely guided him to the clocktower seemed not to have any interest in guiding him further, to the building where the woman would eventually die. 

They walked down the row of warehouses for a ways, as the sun slowly started to sink towards the water. Most warehouses were full, but many were empty, as the one in Taeyong’s dream had been. It could have been any of them. Finally he dragged his feet to a stop and squatted down near one of the buildings, ducking his head. The sunlight slanted into his side and felt no less unbearably hot than it had at midday. He was sick of this sun. And he was sick of the dreamsense he did not understand, which had shown him such terrible things, and then abandoned him. 

“Let’s go back,” Jaehyun said after a moment. “The room should be ready. We can clean up, and come back tomorrow. And John said his aunt knows something about dreams, and is well-connected here. Perhaps she can point us in the direction of this woman. Or I can ask around, and see if anything strange has been going on….” Taeyong could tell that Jaehyun was saying all of this for his benefit, to reassure him, but the city around him felt terribly large and even with his dreams he knew so little. He could see Jaehyun’s feet in their dust-covered shoes shift uncertainly beside him. He breathed through his nose to calm his nerves, but all he could smell was the thick salty scent of the water, the same one that haunted his dreams. He tried not to throw up. 

Jaehyun suddenly dropped to a crouch next to Taeyong. “Come, there’s nothing to find here right now, let’s not stay.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just hauled Taeyong up to stand with a hand under his arm and another against his back. He turned Taeyong around and marched him back past the warehouses the way they had come. The angle of the sun made it hard to see, and Taeyong squinted at the ground and ignored the unease that filled him, exacerbated by his inability to make anything out clearly with the sun in his eyes. 

When they reached the boarding house again Taeyong felt a bit more like himself. In fact, the farther they’d gotten from the docks the better he’d felt. The same maid as before brought them upstairs to the top floor, this time introducing herself briskly as Miss June. She left them at a small room with a narrow bed, and another pile of bedding set up neatly on the floor. It reminded Taeyong of his own room at the Jung estate. They did not look so similar, but the plain small space made him feel suddenly homesick, not only for the familiar surroundings of the manor, but for how much simpler his life had been before all this had begun. He dropped his bag on the floor beside the bedding and turned to the wash basin, eager to finally get the dirt off him. 

“I said I’d sleep on the floor,” Jaehyun said. 

Taeyong looked up, surprised. He hadn’t thought Jaehyun had really meant it. He thought he’d just been saying anything to get Miss June to give them the space he wanted. “It’s alright.” 

Jaehyun picked up Taeyong’s bag and moved to set it neatly beside the bed, replacing its space on the floor with his own things. 

“Sir, you shouldn’t--” 

“Yes, I should,” Jaehyun said, almost fiercely. “If you want to be given a reason, then let’s say it’s because you’re the one who’s burdened by these dreams, and you should be able to sleep comfortably. Will you accept that?” 

Taeyong turned away to the washbasin again and started unbuttoning his shirt, his face hot. The dreams had become a burden, but he didn’t like that Jaehyun thought he couldn’t handle it. But if he started arguing with Jaehyun about the bed, he worried that a lot more would get said that he didn’t want to let himself say. Taeyong pulled off his shirt and scrubbed as much of the dirt off of his skin as he could, ducking his head to rinse his hair. He would have given anything to return to the cool stream behind John and Ten’s house, to submerge himself until he became truly clean. But this would have to do for now. 

Taeyong changed the rest of his clothes awkwardly in the corner, averting his eyes while Jaehyun washed and changed as well. He was fairly accustomed to being in the presence of the other male servants at the estate, and he had not always had the luxury of sleeping in his own room there, but sharing such close quarters with Jaehyun still made him uncomfortable. He thought taking the bunk in the dorm room where he’d be surrounded by men he’d never even met might have been preferable. 

After they’d both changed and become slightly more presentable, they headed downstairs for supper, to finally meet Miss Margaret, and hopefully get some answers. When they reached the ground floor the smell of food grew stronger, and they found the dining room towards the back of the house. They said hello to the few men who were already sitting at the large, sturdy-looking table that took up most of the space, and sat down as Miss June came in and out and placed some large dishes of food on the table. The other men thanked her and chatted with an ease that indicated they’d been staying here for some time already. 

A few moments later another woman emerged from the kitchen. She was quite tall, like her nephew. Her hair was tied back neatly and her eyes were bright and observant. She wiped her hands on her apron and sat down at the head of the table, greeting the men around her by name and smiling as one handed her a plate of food. Her eyes fell on Jaehyun first, and her face lit up in a warm smile. “Jaehyun, my boy, you made it! Although not such a boy as when I saw you last, are you?” 

Jaehyun smiled, looking embarrassed but pleased. “It’s lovely to see you again, Miss Margaret,” he said. “Thank you for letting us stay here.” The other boarders who’d been talking amongst themselves were quiet now, watching the exchange with a vague, polite sort of interest. 

“Ah, yes, there are two of you, aren’t there?” Miss Margaret leaned forward, and Jaehyun leaned back in his seat so she could see Taeyong better. “Taeyong, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Taeyong said. He remembered that Miss Margaret knew of his dreams from John’s letter, but he found it less uncomfortable than he’d been expecting. She exuded warmth and yet seemed to see and understand everything around her at the same time. He felt that she knew things about him already that went far beyond the simple fact of his dreaming, things he would not have wanted other strangers to know, but the way she looked at him made him think she was not a person who would ever use her considerable knowledge against him. He wanted to trust her, the way he’d found himself trusting John and Ten, although he’d never expected to. 

“Well, we have much to talk about then. But first, eat up. It’s miserably hot out, isn’t it, you can’t have had an easy journey. Tell me, how’s my nephew?” 

The other borders resumed their conversations as Jaehyun kept up with Miss Margaret’s questions between bites of food. Taeyong was reminded of the busy meals in the kitchen at the Jung manor and found that he was at ease here. It didn’t hurt that the food was delicious, and he ate until he was very full. 

“Business has been good lately, thankfully,” Miss Margaret was saying. “Mr. Walrick opened a new factory recently, and more men have come seeking work. And all the factories have kept him too busy these days to bother me.” She shook her head, and Taeyong saw a number of the boarders do the same.

“Is that not why you fellows are here?” one of the men sitting across the table asked, not unkindly. 

“Ah, well, we did hear there are many factories and chances for work here,” Jaehyun said, deftly avoiding giving a direct answer. 

“And they had to come see me, of course, the favorite aunt of their favorite friend.” Miss Margaret laughed loudly and the men around the table smiled back, shaking their heads again, this time with amusement. 

The men started clearing their plates to the kitchen and peeled off one by one up the stairs to go to their rooms. Taeyong watched them head up the stairs and found himself thinking of the bed that was waiting for him. The day suddenly felt as though it had been endless. The room was quiet now, and a breeze drifted in through one of the windows which was cooler despite still carrying the smell of the city. Taeyong tried to follow Miss Margaret’s and Jaehyun’s conversation but he found that his eyes were very heavy, and they started to drift closed. 

“Taeyong?” He blinked open his eyes and saw Jaehyun peering at him. “You should go upstairs and sleep, I can tell you anything I learn in the morning.” 

“Oh, no.” Taeyong cleared his throat and sat up straighter. He glanced at Miss Margaret. “My apologies, ma’am.” 

“It’s alright,” she said, smiling. “Go on up to sleep.” 

Taeyong looked uncertainly between them. He felt as though he should stay, and explain everything about himself and his dreams, or at least that he should be more interested in hearing what Miss Margaret might be able to share with them. But the thought of staying awake only to sit through a conversation that revolved around him and his strange abilities was not an appealing prospect. He finally stood and bowed his head slightly to them both. “Thank you for supper, it was delicious,” he said. 

When he reached the small room on the top floor, he was very grateful after all that Jaehyun had insisted he take the bed. There was a window beside it, and he pulled it open, glad that at the top of the house the air that flowed into the room seemed to be a little fresher than it was down near the street. He flopped down on top of the blankets on his stomach, and drifted immediately off to sleep with the summer breeze cooling the back of his neck. 

Taeyong had not even slept long enough to dream before he was woken up by pounding on the door. He jolted up out of bed and had a dizzying moment as he stood when he did not know where he was, and then remembered he was in Coveport, in the boarding house. He had already walked across the room by the time this information came to him, his body moving even before he was fully awake, fueled by the groggy panic of being woken by such urgent knocks. He yanked open the door, and saw Jaehyun. He frowned. The door had not been locked, but Jaehyun stepped back when it opened and looked hesitant to enter. Taeyong rubbed his face and squinted at him. 

Jaehyun looked afraid, Taeyong realized after a moment, and this made him feel afraid, even as the confusion of being yanked so suddenly out of sleep faded. He clenched his jaw. He did not want to hear what Jaehyun was going to say. 

“Taeyong, we--we’re too late.” 

Bile rose up in Taeyong’s throat. “What?” he managed. He pressed his hands against his collarbone, as if this would keep the contents of his stomach in place. 

“They found her.” Jaehyun’s voice shook. “Everything was exactly as you said.” 

“How do you--?” 

“Two other boarders came back from working a late shift while I was downstairs with Miss Margaret. They’d seen a crowd gathered at one of the warehouses by the water. The police were there. They were… cutting down the body when the men arrived. Suicide, people were saying.” 

Taeyong pressed his knuckles against his mouth and stumbled backwards into the room until his knees hit the bed and he sat down hard. Jaehyun followed him, reached out for him, but Taeyong jerked back. “ _ Don’t touch me _ .” The words came out in a hiss he didn’t recognize, and Jaehyun recoiled. 

“It isn’t your fault,” he said hesitantly. 

Taeyong looked up at him. Anger flooded through him, and he found that focusing on it made his nausea and terror fade. “Of course it’s not my fault. I never wanted to come here in the first place. I  _ knew _ we wouldn’t be able to do anything. But you are so convinced you could never fail at anything that you truly believed we could change this woman’s fate. And maybe we could have,  _ sir _ , but we spent days just lazing around with those ridiculous friends of yours instead. So don’t speak to me of  _ fault _ , as if I don’t already know whose fault this is.” 

Jaehyun took another step backwards, as shocked as though Taeyong had just struck him across the face. Taeyong leaned forward, waiting for what Jaehyun would say next, what he would throw back at him, almost eager for it. 

But when the shock faded from Jaehyun’s face, the expression that remained wasn’t angry. He looked down, twisted his hands in front of him. Taeyong felt his gut lurch again unpleasantly and looked away. “But… we can still do something, right?” Jaehyun’s voice was quiet, but when Taeyong still said nothing, he continued speaking and his voice grew stronger. “We’re the only ones who know the truth. Everyone is saying she hung herself, but you  _ saw _ what really happened. We can do something about that. We can make sure no one else gets hurt by those men.” 

“I’m never going to have that dream again,” Taeyong said. “We failed, my dream wasn’t enough, nothing else I can do will be enough. It’s over.” 

“No, we can--”

“What, tell the police she was murdered? And when they ask how we know? Jaehyun, they’d lock us both up in an instant. And you might get out okay, but I would not. Don’t you know when to give up?” 

Jaehyun opened his mouth and then closed it, and the look on his face was so frustrated and helpless that Taeyong had to look away. He was having trouble staying angry, and without the rage he just felt worn out. He wasn’t sure if the sensation at the back of his throat meant he was about to vomit or cry. He should not have let himself get so carried away with this plan. He should not have let himself get carried away with Jaehyun’s optimism, or believe that he could fit into Jaehyun’s world which was not a world Taeyong belonged in. 

Taeyong sighed. “I’m going back to sleep, and tomorrow we will leave this place and return to your family’s estate. We never should have come.” He lay down with his back to Jaehyun, and squeezed his eyes shut, though sleep did not come. It was silent for a long time, and then finally Taeyong heard Jaehyun moving about and settling on the floor. He could hear Jaehyun’s breaths in the quiet room, the way they slowed and deepened as he fell asleep, and he resented how peacefully he rested.

Taeyong tried to find some cold comfort in the knowledge that at least he would never have to see the woman die in his dreams again, but when he did finally fall asleep, he found himself in the bed with the calico quilt. He could feel his conscious self trying to fight against the dreamsense this time, and the now familiar dream was infused with a strange desperation. When the dream shifted to the dark building, the desperation grew, his panic more real than it had ever been before. 

When he finally was able to wake up there were tears on his face. The boarding house was quiet, and even the street outside was strangely hushed for the first time since they’d arrived. Taeyong felt utterly alone. The man sleeping on the floor next to him was bound to die, just as the woman had. He might have been able to save Cook from little mishaps in the kitchen, but he hadn’t been able to save this woman when it really mattered, and he wouldn’t be able to save Jaehyun either. And he understood with a fierce sudden clarity that this, even more than distrust, was why he was so unwilling to befriend him. He did not want to care about someone who would die so soon. 

He rolled over and pressed his face hard into the pillow as the tears came faster. It felt like giving up, to cry like this, a tangled onslaught of mourning for the woman, and for Jaehyun who was not yet dead, and for himself. 

His body shook with the effort of keeping his sobs quiet as he muffled himself into the pillow. He heard movement on the floor and tried to hold his breath, praying Jaehyun would not wake up. But then the bed sank beside him. He could not hold his breath anymore and let it out into the pillow, which was wet now under his face. A warm hand pressed lightly into Taeyong’s back. It felt as though Jaehyun was ready to snatch it away again at any moment, but Taeyong didn’t have energy even to flinch. The hand became heavier against his spine, then the bed shifted again and Jaehyun rubbed his hand gently over Taeyong’s back, again and again. It had been a long time since Taeyong had cried like this, and it had been an even longer time since he’d had someone there to comfort him. And Jaehyun’s hand was comforting, warm and steady against his back, even tender. Taeyong did not want to push him away, or blame him, and this made him afraid. 

Jaehyun kept stroking his back long after his sobs quieted, and just before Taeyong finally slipped off into exhausted sleep, he heard him whisper, “Oh, Taeyong….” 

Taeyong woke late again the next morning, and the sounds of the city had returned and came in through the window along with the sunlight. He squinted and got out of bed. The room was empty and Jaehyun’s bedding was neatly folded on the floor. Taeyong’s face felt puffy and his eyes itched from crying, which he would have rather forgotten about. It made him feel self-conscious, as though anyone who saw him would know the weakness he’d shown the night before, and it reminded him of the woman’s death, and his failure to save her. But neither Miss June nor Miss Margaret said anything or even seemed to look at him differently when he found them both downstairs.

“Good morning,” he said politely. His voice was scratchy. There was still no sign of Jaehyun anywhere, and Taeyong held himself back from asking. His belongings had still been in the room upstairs, so he couldn’t have gone far.

“Good morning,” Miss Margaret smiled at him, and Miss June passed him a plate of breakfast. “We set aside some food for you.” Taeyong thanked them and started to eat, finding that he was ravenous. 

The sound of the front door opening made them all look up, and a moment later Jaehyun burst into the dining room. He looked surprised to see Taeyong, and a little nervous, as though he wasn’t sure how he would react this morning. Taeyong ignored a twinge of guilt and nodded at him in silent greeting. 

“I was out to find a newspaper, and ask around the docks, see if I could find anything out.” Jaehyun dropped into the chair next to Taeyong, and Miss Margaret sat down as well, while Miss June disappeared into the kitchen. “She was a fortune teller,” Jaehyun said, sounding almost excited. Taeyong stared blankly back at him. “I went to her shop, and people were gathered there, eager for gossip. They said she told fortunes regularly for Mr. Walrick, even went to his offices to do private readings, attended his social gatherings to provide entertainment for his guests. They said she must have been doing well for herself, if such an important man was giving her so much business. Couldn’t understand why she’d… hang herself. Which of course, she didn’t.” 

“Jaehyun,” Taeyong said in a low voice, with a glance at Miss Margaret. “We shouldn’t stay here. She’s dead, these things don’t matter.” 

“But Mr. Walrick is involved again,” Jaehyun said, leaning forward. “That can’t be a coincidence.” 

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Miss Margaret said. She sounded bitter. “Mr. Walrick is the type of man who will do anything to advance himself. When I declined to sell him this building, he spread horrible rumors about the establishment. Rocks started getting thrown through my windows, and I’m sure he was behind it. Plenty of people in this city in unfortunate circumstances, willing to break some glass for a bit of money or a warm meal. And he knows this well, believes everyone else exists for him to manipulate. And that’s saying nothing of the other deaths here. I don’t put killing past him at all.” 

“John told us there have been a number of suspicious hangings,” Jaehyun said. 

“Mm, yes. One when you both were visiting, wasn’t there?” Jaehyun nodded and Miss Margaret continued. “People here know Mr. Walrick is corrupt, but there isn’t much to do about it. He covers his tracks well enough, and the police don’t let anything touch him. He’s too good for the city’s wealth, and that wealth pays their salaries. I’ve tried to expose him, there are people I know who also want him gone, but anything short of catching him in the act of a crime wouldn’t stick, and he’s never the one doing the unsavory acts himself. And to be fair, his factories do provide jobs that people need. They’re hard jobs but they can get a man by, and that isn’t something many can turn down.” 

Taeyong nodded, thinking of the men in his dream saying,  _ People know not to ask too many questions around here. _

“Why does a man like that need his fortune read?” Taeyong asked, starting to wonder in spite of himself. “If it was only the parties I’d understand, but it seems strange, doesn’t it? Or does he believe in those things?” 

“From what I heard at her shop, people believed this woman truly possessed the sight. She went by Madame Russo, and had a good reputation, or as good as possible for a mystic. They’d heard she could slip into a genuine trance and her predictions had come true many times. Taeyong,” Jaehyun leaned forward, “One woman swore Madame Russo came to her in a dream. Told her she needed to stay home the next day at all costs, and the woman was so shaken by the dream that she did, and that day there was a fire in the shop she worked at. Everyone was alright, but the woman said she went by later and saw a roof beam had fallen right at her station in the shop. In the exact spot she always stood, she said. She went to find Madame Russo afterwards, and said she didn’t seem at all surprised to see her. She insisted Madame Russo could truly walk through people’s dreams.” 

Taeyong stared at Jaehyun, feeling uneasy. It had never occurred to him that other people might have strange dreams, as he did. Madame Russo sounded much more powerful than he was, if she really did posses the ability to enter others’ dreams, and Taeyong realized bitterly that she had been able to save others’ lives, while he had failed to save hers. But she also told people predictions of the future, and perhaps she saw those in dreams as well, as Taeyong did. He wondered if Mr. Walrick knew about her dreams, and if this was the reason he used her, not simply as a frivolous form of macabre entertainment. 

“We have to stay here a little longer,” Jaehyun said, his eyes anxious. “We have to find out more about Mr. Walrick. He seems to be behind everything, and if Madame Russo could really dream like you do, and he knew….” 

The thought made Taeyong nervous as well, but so did the thought of continuing to pursue this, only to see more people get hurt. “Where could we even start?” he asked. 

“Mr. Walrick opened a new hotel recently,” Miss Margaret said. “Named it the Walrick Hotel, arrogant bastard.” Taeyong’s eyebrows raised at the curse and he sensed Jaehyun’s surprise as well, but Miss Margaret didn’t bat an eye. “Most luxurious place in this city. He keeps rooms there himself, and an office. If you go to the hotel, you’re sure to find him or hear of him.” 

“Is that hotel across from the clocktower?” Taeyong asked. 

“Yes, that’s the one. He owns the clocktower building too, though it’s not in good shape.”

Taeyong shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Mr. Walrick really did seem to be everywhere. 

“We have to go look,” Jaehyun said. He still seemed to be treating Taeyong with a strange nervous sort of care, but he spoke earnestly. 

“Very well,” Taeyong finally relented. He felt torn by many different feelings. On the one hand there was relief to be doing something again, moving forward instead of dwelling on Madame Russo’s death. But there was also bitterness, that they were finally learning so much about her only now that it was too late to save her. And there was the constant undercurrent of fear. He did not want to get closer to Mr. Walrick, but it felt hard to walk away when he knew how many people the man had already hurt. 

They said goodbye to Miss Margaret and found their way back to the hotel. Taeyong glanced at the clocktower once and shivered before they disappeared into the rich interior of the hotel. The place was busy, and there was a banner stretching over the front desk welcoming guests to the newly opened Walrick Hotel. There was a tea room through large doors to one side of the desk, and just outside it a wide wooden staircase curved up to the rooms above. Elegant furniture occupied the other side of the lobby, and behind the desk a narrow hallway stretched back into dimness.

A quick glance into the tea room made it clear that neither of them was dressed suitably enough to enter, so they made themselves comfortable on a pair of chairs in the corner of the lobby, where they could watch the people coming in and out. It soon became clear, as they watched, that despite the elegance of their surroundings and the rich attire of the people in the tea room, all manner of people were coming through this place. Most of the guests, who went up and down the stairs to the rooms, looked wealthy enough, and the staff had crisp perfectly kept uniforms. But there were also a handful of men who looked more like they might have belonged in Mr. Walrick’s factories than in a place like this. These men came and went down the hall in the back, or chatted with the man at the front desk, or with a group of women who occupied a circle of couches across the room. 

“I think they’re prostitutes,” Jaehyun said, in a low voice, sounding thoughtful. 

Taeyong squinted over at them, trying to see how Jaehyun had come to this conclusion. “How do you know?” 

“I’ve been watching the men. Some seem to work here, but don’t have the uniforms of the other staff. But they go in and out of that hallway far too often, and it doesn’t seem as though that space is open to the guests. And then, yes, watch, he tells the woman something, and a moment later… there, she goes upstairs. To see to a guest, I’d imagine. Interesting that it’s happening so out in the open. Mr. Walrick must be making a lot of money off of providing a service like that in a place with so much apparent respectability. It doesn’t seem like all of the guests are even aware that it’s happening.” 

Another man emerged from the hallway in the back, and Taeyong suddenly felt cold all over. “It’s him,” he whispered. 

Jaehyun glanced at him, then at the man Taeyong stared at. “Mr. Walrick?” he asked. 

“No, from the dream. One of the men who….” Taeyong wrapped his arms around himself to stop from shaking despite the warm day. 

“Oh….” Jaehyun looked back at the man, who went to the front desk and struck up a conversation with the man there. The desk was close enough that they could make out some of what they were saying. 

“You’ll be here tonight then, won’t you Mr. Fisk?” said the man behind the counter.

“Of course. A whole grand opening ball for the rich and influential, wouldn’t miss it.” Mr. Fisk laughed, and the familiar sound made Taeyong’s skin crawl. He had laughed the same way after murdering Madame Russo. 

“He’s sure to make a killing with this place,” the man behind the desk said. “The mayor himself is supposed to attend.” The men laughed again. 

“Are you alright?” Jaehyun turned to Taeyong, who’d gone pale but nodded firmly. “We should attend this ball,” he continued, eyes searching Taeyong’s face. “Mr. Walrick will be out amongst the guests, greeting people, even discussing business. We’ll see who his connections are. And,” he lowered his voice, “with a large crowd we may be able to look around this place without notice.” 

Taeyong nodded, though he was still uneasy. He’d never attended any ball as a guest, let alone one hosted by a man who routinely had people killed. And the men who carried out the killings with their own hands would be in attendance as well. 

Mr. Fisk now turned away from the desk and headed past Jaehyun and Taeyong out the front doors. Taeyong shrank down in his seat instinctively, although of course the man had never seen him before in his life and wouldn’t recognize him. 

Jaehyun glanced at him and stood. “Let’s go, we’ll return tonight for the party.” 

They headed back to the boarding house through the busy, hot streets. When they were still a few blocks away, Jaehyun stopped. “Go on ahead, I saw a shop back that way, I’m going to get some things.” 

“I can come--”

“It’s fine, it won’t take long. I’ll see you at Miss Margaret’s.” Jaehyun turned and was quickly lost in the crowd. Taeyong blinked after him for a moment, and then returned to the boarding house alone. 

Jaehyun did not return as soon as Taeyong was expecting, and he passed the afternoon uneasily. He went out to the stables to see Windfall and Commodore, hoping they would calm him down, and then convinced Miss June to let him help her clean the rooms, which kept him busy for some time, at least. And then he had nothing to do but sit in the front room and wait. 

At last, Jaehyun came in through the front doors, carrying two large boxes. He greeted Miss Margaret, who eyed the box with interest. “There’s a ball at the Walrick Hotel tonight,” Jaehyun said, “to celebrate its opening.” 

“Ah.” Miss Margaret raised her eyebrows. “Enjoy, then.” 

Jaehyun headed to the stairs and gestured for Taeyong to follow him. When they reached their room Jaehyun dropped the boxes onto the bed and opened them, revealing black formal suits. Jaehyun pulled a pair of trousers out of one and handed them to Taeyong, held up an elegant tailcoat and eyed it discerningly. “I hope this fits, I had to guess the measurements.” 

Taeyong wanted to ask why Jaehyun had insisted on going to the shop alone if having them both present to be measured would have made things easier, but he knew already that the suits must have been expensive, and that this was why Jaehyun had gone alone. He wasn’t sure if he would have felt more uncomfortable in the shop, unable to pay for anything, or if he was more uncomfortable now, knowing that Jaehyun had thought of this and arranged for everything himself. Regardless, they needed clothes such as these to attend the party, and Taeyong couldn’t refuse them. 

Jaehyun unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, saying, “I think I should go as myself, with my real name. There is a chance someone might know me, as I went to school not far away, or they might have heard of my family. It’s best not to risk being recognized with a false name.” Taeyong nodded, noticing the flush of a sunburn that spread across Jaehyun’s shoulders and chest. He wondered if it stung. Jaehyun started unbuttoning his pants, still talking, and Taeyong blinked and turned around to change his own clothes. “And as for you,” Jaehyun continued, “we can say we attended university together, in case someone asks.”

“Alright." Taeyong finished buttoning the new shirt, which was stiff and almost blindingly white, and tucked it in to the neatly pressed trousers. He could tell that the fabric was finer than anything he’d worn against his own skin before. Jaehyun’s guesses at his size had also been impressively accurate. Taeyong enjoyed the feel of the clothes, and the feel of who he became wearing them, but the strangeness of it made his heart stutter with nerves. 

He went to the washbasin and combed his hair back as neatly as he could, wondering if Cook would approve, and smiling as he imagined her face if she saw him like this. A crisp white bowtie was left in the box on the bed and he glanced at it. He peeked at Jaehyun, but he was already fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed tying his shoes, bowtie neat around his neck. Taeyong picked it up and looped it around his collar, peering into the mirror in the hope that some rhyme or reason to the small scrap of cloth would emerge there, but none did. 

“Here,” Jaehyun said. He stepped up behind Taeyong and pushed his hands out of the way. His fingers seemed to know what they were doing, but it still took him more than one try. He chuckled a little when his first attempt was uneven. The sound was very close to Taeyong’s ear as Jaehyun ducked to try to see better in the mirror. “I’ve never tied these cursed things for someone else before,” he said with a crooked smile as he took a firmer hold onto the tie and tried again.

The back of Taeyong’s neck felt very hot and he could see his cheeks were flushed in the mirror, but he tried to match Jaehyun’s easy smile and pretend he was comfortable in the clothes, and comfortable with Jaehyun’s chest against his back and fingers moving around his throat. Jaehyun’s breath skated past his ear on every exhale and made his hair stand on end. He was not going to last the night if his nerves were already this bad, but he knew his reaction was not only due to worry about the party. He still was not used to this kind of easy closeness, least of all with Jaehyun. But he remembered the feel of Jaehyun’s hand on his back the night before, how soothing it had been, and wondered if his touch was something he might grow accustomed to.

“There,” Jaehyun said. He met Taeyong’s eyes in the mirror and smiled, settling his hands on his shoulders. “Don’t be nervous. It’s a party, it should be fun even if we learn nothing. And you look very handsome.” He patted Taeyong’s shoulders again, then trailed his hands down the crisp sleeves, let them linger for a moment on his arms. His fingers curved over his biceps and Taeyong could feel the warmth of them through his shirt. His heart kicked in his chest. He felt like he should say something, but his mind was strangely blank. He looked at Jaehyun’s face in the mirror, but Jaehyun wasn’t looking back at the reflection anymore. Instead his eyes had dropped to look at the side of Taeyong’s face right in front of him. Taeyong shivered and Jaehyun stepped suddenly away, straightening his own jacket and clearing his throat. “We should go,” he said briskly, already stepping towards the door. 

Outside, Jaehyun managed to hail a hansom cab passing on the main street, and they squeezed inside. Taeyong was glad for the ride; even though the hotel was in walking distance, the thought of exposing such elegant clothes to the hot, dirty streets horrified him. He found himself fretting over every speck on his pants and smudge on his polished black shoes. 

In no time at all, the cab stopped and Taeyong climbed out after Jaehyun in front of the hotel. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and the sky was streaked with pink over the impressive facade of the building. It was fully lit with electric lights, and elegant men and women flowed steadily up the wide steps and through the grand open doors. Lively music reached the street from inside, along with an excited hum of voices. 

“Ready?” Jaehyun asked, coming up beside Taeyong as the hansom cab pulled away down the street behind them. 

Taeyong could only nod.

When Taeyong stepped through the hotel’s front doors the lights and colors and sounds that had reached him out on the street multiplied almost overwhelmingly. Some people were gathered in the lobby, but most of the guests were entering the large room which had been serving tea earlier in the day, and Jaehyun and Taeyong followed them in. No one stopped them or questioned their presence. Now the tables had been arranged on one side, and couples danced gracefully across the open floor while others stood and talked around the edges of the room. Waiters whose uniforms looked almost as elegant and expensive as the clothes worn by the guests circulated around the room, heading to and from the gleaming bar in one corner with trays of carefully balanced drinks. Jaehyun deftly lifted two glasses off a tray as a waiter whirled by and handed one to Taeyong. 

Taeyong sniffed the amber liquid and raised his eyebrows, glancing at Jaehyun who was scanning the room and sipping easily from his own glass. Taeyong took a sip. The drink was sweet and smoky and he could feel the heat of it in his chest. He took another sip. He’d had alcohol before, but never anything quite as smooth as this, and he was surprised that there could be such a difference even in spirits when it came to expense.

They were still standing just inside the door, but Jaehyun suddenly turned and started edging through the people around the side of the room. Taeyong followed. He couldn’t remember ever being in such a large group. When the Jungs entertained it wasn’t so crowded as this, possibly because their estate was so spacious, and of course he was only expected to silently serve people at those events which strangely felt like much less pressure than this. Here, as he and Jaehyun made their way through the gathering, people looked at him in a way they never had when he’d been only in a servants’ uniform. He was taken aback, but he saw the way Jaehyun fixed a polite smile on his face, and tried to mimic the expression himself, nodding to people as he went by. He was not so sure the people who looked at him really believed he was a gentleman just because he was now wearing a gentleman’s clothes, and he was certain he’d reveal himself in the way he walked, or drank, or spoke. 

When they’d made it to the other side of the room, Jaehyun stopped near large French windows which were open onto a low terrace stretching down the side of the building. The warm night air drifted in at their backs. Now that they’d stopped moving, people started greeting them. Everyone was polite but the curiosity in their gazes made Taeyong uncomfortable. He occupied himself with his drink and tried to say as little as possible, and as the liquor warmed him he felt, not more at ease, perhaps, but less concerned with his discomfort. Taeyong said very little past “hello,” but the guests didn’t seem to mind, as Jaehyun spoke easily beside him, neatly avoiding giving any real answers to their questions. Taeyong had never learned to speak the way he noticed Jaehyun and the other guests spoke. Their sentences were so perfectly constructed and yet revealed almost nothing, an art of speaking without saying anything at all. The guests smiled and the curiosity in their eyes turned to admiration, which Taeyong didn’t find surprising. Jaehyun cut a rather impressive figure that Taeyong didn’t think he was managing to emulate, despite the clothes. He took another sip of his drink and tried to stand taller. 

“There he is,” Jaehyun said suddenly, ducking to speak in a low voice and looking across the room. A large man had just come in, not through the main doors but through a smaller door in the back of the room. Despite the nondescript entrance, everyone’s attention turned to him as he walked further into the room.

“How do you know?” Taeyong whispered back. 

“I asked the gentleman we were just speaking with, were you not listening?”

“Oh, right, yes,” Taeyong said vaguely. A waiter appeared before him, and he placed his empty glass on the tray and took a full one from it. He could feel Jaehyun eyeing him, but he turned back to watch Mr. Walrick as he walked around and greeted his guests. There was nothing about him to indicate that he was the man behind the horrible things he’d heard from Miss Margaret or seen in his dreams. He spoke warmly to his guests and his voice carried, deep and booming. His wide smile never slipped, though it didn’t reach his eyes, which were small and dark. Some men followed him at a slight distance, and Taeyong saw that Mr. Fisk was among them, though he didn’t see the other man from his dream. His skin crawled, and he tipped his head back and downed the rest of the contents of his glass, wincing. 

“Taeyong--”

“I need to relieve myself, I’ll be right back,” Taeyong said, and held his empty glass out to Jaehyun, who took it, looking taken aback. Taeyong wound his way through the guests and emerged into the lobby. No one paid him any mind as he slipped into the back hallway that he and Jaehyun had noticed just that morning. He thought it was plausible that he might find a place to relieve himself through here, and he was tipsy enough that he thought that excuse would ease anyone’s suspicions if they caught him somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. 

There were a number of doors along this hall, which Taeyong tried opening. One did indeed open onto a small bathroom, and he used it hurriedly, aware of the second glass of brandy hitting his bloodstream. Other doors revealed linen closets or storage rooms. Near the end of the hall was a door with a wide glass window that revealed a small lounge, with dark bookshelves lining the walls, rich furniture, and a fully stocked liquor cabinet near an impressive fireplace. Next to that the hall ended at a door with gold letters across it that proclaimed,  _ Victor Walrick, Proprietor _ . Taeyong reached for the doorknob--

“There you are!” An urgent hiss behind him made Taeyong jump and turn around. Jaehyun hurried towards him, peering warily at the doors he passed until he reached Taeyong. “What are you doing? You said you’d be right back.” 

Taeyong gestured to the gold writing on the door and Jaehyun went quiet. The door was locked when Taeyong turned the handle. “Wait a moment,” Jaehyun said, and walked away down the hall. He ducked into one of the rooms Taeyong had passed, and when he returned he was holding a slender nail. 

“What?” Taeyong asked. 

“All sorts of things to be found in that storage room,” Jaehyun muttered vaguely, and then pushed the nail into the keyhole. It took a few moments, during which Taeyong kept glancing nervously down the hall. He could see guests in the lobby, but they didn’t seem to be able to see them back here in the gloom, or perhaps they simply weren’t paying enough attention. The lock clicked, Jaehyun eased open the door, and they both slipped inside. 

“How did you know how to do that?” Taeyong asked as he stared around the room. Another grand fireplace took up most of one wall, with narrow doors on either side of it. An enormous desk of polished wood stood in the middle of the room, with a large chair behind it and two smaller chairs in front of it. 

“One of many things I learned at school that was not strictly part of the curriculum,” Jaehyun said. He crossed the room and checked the two doors next to the fireplace, one of which led to a private bathroom, and the other to a coat closet. “Unfortunately never learned how to unlock a safe.” Taeyong leaned around Jaehyun to see better, and sure enough inside the closet was a large safe. “Well, let’s see if we find anything he hasn’t locked up.” 

They both turned to the desk, which had piles of files and papers on it, and began rifling through them. Taeyong read through letters about plans to meet with other businessmen, some carefully marked lists of inventory, a small notebook full of scrawls that were entirely illegible. Jaehyun looked through a large ledger, frowning at the figures. “These all add up,” he mumbled. “I feel like I’m looking at something that should implicate him but there’s really nothing here.” He dropped the ledger back onto the desk and tried the drawers, which opened easily but were full of the same benign business papers. 

Taeyong opened a drawer on the other side of the desk, and picked up the thick file of papers inside. He opened it up on the desk, expecting more lists of accounting, but instead he found a number of newspaper clippings, advertisements, and pages of handwritten notes. He frowned, skimming through them, wishing he hadn’t drank both glasses of liquor because his head felt slightly foggy. “Look at this.” Jaehyun came up beside him and read over his shoulder. “Look, this leaflet advertises Madame Russo… and there are other fliers for fortune tellers, mystics, spectacles of the occult…. What is this?” 

Jaehyun was reading through a newspaper article. “This is a story about a young boy who was committed to an asylum because he kept saying he could visit people’s dreams. His parents said he was unnatural, demonic, locked him into his room but claimed they’d still see him in their dreams every night. How horrible…. And this one, a little girl disappeared in a small town and a woman from three towns over showed up one day and knew exactly where the child was, claimed to have seen it in a dream, and they found the girl and she was okay. Ah, but then they locked the woman up.” 

“That isn’t surpris--” Taeyong went still. There were voices in the hall, coming closer. He snatched the pages out of Jaehyun’s hand and shoved the file back into the drawer. Jaehyun yanked his arm hard towards the closet, squeezed them both inside and barely managed to get the door closed behind them before the door to the office opened. The closet was dark except for thin slivers of light that came in around the door. Taeyong hunched amongst the hanging coats, then felt the coats move as Jaehyun carefully pushed them aside. He pushed Taeyong backwards until they were both huddled against the back corner of the closet, with the coats hanging behind them. 

Taeyong’s heart was pounding so hard he was sure the people in the office would hear it, or at least Jaehyun would, who stood facing him with his hands braced against the wall on either side of Taeyong’s shoulders. In the dim light Taeyong could see Jaehyun’s face turned towards the door as he listened intently to whoever was out there. Taeyong tried to calm himself enough to listen too. 

He made out a man’s voice and caught the end of his question: “...in Room 602?” 

“Yes.” A woman spoke now. She sounded bored. “I cleaned 602, as instructed. But I don’t like cleaning up after people. Such respectable work doesn’t suit me. I’m used to more excitement.” 

“Keep your hands to yourself, woman, and tell me about the guests in 602.” 

“You used to be more fun, Mr. Fisk.” Taeyong flinched at the name. This was one of the murderers he’d dreamed of, and he seemed to be everywhere. “Very well,” the woman continued. “It’s an old woman in that room, with her son who’s caring for her. They seem very simple. Were practically in awe that I’d appeared to clean the room for them, kept thanking me and expressing their gratitude for Mr. Walrick’s invitation. They’d clearly never stayed anywhere like this before, probably never traveled outside of whatever little town they came from. Pitiful, really.”

“You know what information I’m interested in. Get to the point,” Mr. Fisk hissed. 

The woman only chuckled bitterly. “Yes, I know, you’re interested in some very strange things. They rang for a maid in the middle of the night last night, as you probably heard. When I arrived they were so apologetic, needed the sheets changed. I thought the old woman must have wet the bed, but the sheets were soaked with sweat. Even in this weather, it was excessive. And while I was changing the bedding, the man was talking to his mother. ‘Tell me everything you saw,’ he said. And he was writing it all down. The woman was talking about seeing a dog fall through the ice on a frozen river back home, and her son said, ‘We’ll have to be careful then, come winter.’ Then the bed was ready and they went back to sleep so I left.” 

“So he was right,” Mr. Fisk said, sounding thoughtful. “The woman is a dreamer.” Taeyong felt Jaehyun shift in front of him as he looked away from the closet door and stared down at him, eyes wide, reflecting Taeyong’s own expression. “Although if she’s only dreaming of dogs I don’t know how helpful she’ll be.”

“What does Mr. Walrick want with her anyway? She’s so old I can’t imagine her being good for much of anything. She wasn’t making a lick of sense most of the time, even her son seemed a bit tired,” the woman said. 

“That doesn’t concern you. All that concerns you is the money Mr. Walrick gives you and the services you provide.” Mr. Fisk’s voice grew closer as he talked, and then suddenly the closet was flooded with light as the door opened. Taeyong didn’t even have time to gasp before Jaehyun had crushed him against the wall, pushing Taeyong’s face down hard into his chest and bowing his own head so they were both curled as far back as possible into the dim corner behind the coats. 

Taeyong was so afraid he could almost taste it, bitter on the back of his tongue beneath the lingering taste of alcohol. His heart pounded in his ears, echoed by Jaehyun’s heartbeat against his forehead. It seemed so loud that he could barely hear the sounds of Mr. Fisk opening the safe, counting paper bills, and locking the safe again. Then Mr. Fisk’s steps receded as he carelessly pushed the closet door behind him so that it only swung halfway closed. Taeyong thought his knees might give out. 

“Here’s your pay, and remember that includes keeping your mouth shut about your work.” 

“Oh, of course, I’m a very trustworthy lady,” the woman giggled. There was the sound of the office door opening, and Taeyong clenched his hands into fists and prayed that they would leave, but the woman kept speaking. “Aw, where are you going, Mr. Fisk? Out there is only a party. Isn’t the entertainment in here much better?” There was a soft thump, and the rustling of papers. 

“Don’t do that. Ah, come on.” 

“Don’t you miss me? We used to enjoy each other’s company, didn’t we?” The papers rustled again, along with the sound of skirts. “Come here.” 

The office door closed and there was a click of the lock, and Mr. Fisk’s footsteps returned across the room. Taeyong was so frustrated at still being stuck here, barely hidden with a murderer only feet away, that it took a moment to realize that Mr. Fisk and the woman had started kissing. He stiffened, mortified. What were they doing, and in Mr. Walrick’s office, of all places? His own breath was hot across his face from his mouth being so close to Jaehyun’s chest, and he lifted his head, at least reasonably certain that the occupants of the office wouldn’t be paying very close attention anymore to any tiny noises coming from the coat closet. Jaehyun glanced down at him, shaking his head almost imperceptibly, like he was also in disbelief at this turn of events. 

The woman was gasping and murmuring things now, and then there was the sound of a belt buckle and another thump and the woman made a louder noise. A moment later the space was only filled with the woman’s moans, and the creaks of the wooden desk, and occasional curses from Mr. Fisk. Taeyong’s mouth dropped open in shock as the full extent of what was happening in there dawned on him. He stared up at Jaehyun and then blinked and put his hands up to cover his ears, which did almost nothing. Jaehyun shifted against him, looking uncomfortable, still caging Taeyong in against the wall with his arms.

Taeyong did not want to listen to this, and it was even more unbearable listening with Jaehyun pressed against him. He had already been sweating in the small space behind the heavy coats, and now his embarrassment made his face burn even more, and the added heat of Jaehyun’s body only made it worse. It was getting difficult to keep his thoughts in order. The knowledge that the sounds of pleasure from the office involved Mr. Fisk, a man he’d seen murder another woman, made Taeyong sick to his stomach. But the only other time he’d heard sounds like this, really, had been in his dreams of Jaehyun, and this was becoming increasingly distracting, especially because it seemed Jaehyun couldn’t stay still, and kept shifting his weight awkwardly in the tight space. He could feel Jaehyun’s chest rising and falling against his own, and heat pooled low in his stomach, which only shocked him more. 

Jaehyun shifted his weight again from foot to foot, and Taeyong flinched and grabbed his hip to keep him still. He could not bear the way Jaehyun’s small movements in the tight space were making his clothes shift over his hot skin. Jaehyun froze and stared down at Taeyong, who lowered his eyes and glared resolutely at Jaehyun’s collar. 

Finally Mr. Fisk let out an especially loud curse, and the creaking of the desk suddenly stopped. There was only heavy breathing for a moment, and then the woman said, “Wait, not--” The belt buckle jangled again, and then the office door opened and closed. “That fucking bastard,” the woman muttered, but she only sounded bored again. “When I make enough to get out of this place….” Taeyong lowered his hands from his ears, and he could hear the woman clamber off the desk with another rustle of papers and skirts. A moment later the office door opened and closed again, and then all was silent. 

Neither of them moved for a moment. Taeyong didn’t think he’d ever been so tense. His fingers dug into Jaehyun’s side so hard they’d started to cramp, and he’d kept his breaths so shallow to stay silent that he suddenly felt lightheaded. 

Jaehyun finally pried Taeyong’s hand away from his side and inched carefully to the closet door, peering out into the office. “Let’s go,” he whispered, and he pulled Taeyong out into the office, and then carefully through the other door into the dark hallway. They stood there for a moment, catching their breath. Jaehyun was still restless, avoiding Taeyong’s eyes as he smoothed his jacket and adjusted his trousers around his thighs. “We shouldn’t go out together, you go first,” Jaehyun said. 

Taeyong nodded and forced himself to walk down the hallway back toward the brightly lit lobby. As he walked he straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin, trying to look like he belonged exactly where he was. A few people glanced at him as he emerged from the hallway, but no one asked him any questions. Mr. Fisk was nowhere to be seen. Taeyong walked as casually as he could towards the front doors of the hotel, and then out onto the front steps. Other guests had spilled outside here and their voices were lively on the otherwise quiet street. Taeyong hoped Jaehyun would think to look for him outside. He didn’t think they’d find any more information at the party than they already had from Mr. Walrick’s office, and regardless, he couldn’t bear the thought of staying inside that building for another minute. 

The night air was humid against his face, and he pressed his fingers to his flushed cheeks. His heart was still beating fast from fear and whatever else he’d felt in that room. He made his way through the guests down into the street, and when he turned back to face the building he saw Jaehyun coming down the steps toward him. They walked away from the party, and even though Taeyong’s shoes and trousers got dusty the thought of being stuck in a carriage beside Jaehyun now was unbearable. Neither of them spoke, and Taeyong was glad for the silence, as his mind was full. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well if you made it through this long chapter, wow and thank you! i hope you enjoyed <33


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You were calling out in your sleep, I thought--” Jaehyun stopped speaking suddenly as Taeyong rocked forward and pressed his face into Jaehyun’s chest, twisting his fingers weakly into his shirt. He could feel Jaehyun’s heartbeat against his forehead and noticed only now, as the fabric of Jaehyun’s shirt dampened against his face, that he was crying. He focused very hard on breathing, and on the warm, living smell of Jaehyun that enveloped him. “Taeyong?” Jaehyun’s surprised voice was laced with something bordering on fear, and Taeyong hated the thought that he was frightened of him, though he couldn’t blame him._
> 
> _“I’ve seen you die,” Taeyong said._

When Taeyong fell asleep that night, he found himself in bed with the clean-smelling calico quilt pressed against his face and Jaehyun pressed against his back. Even as the dream played out and he dissolved into pleasure, and then fear, his distant sleeping self noticed that this dream had been coming to him more frequently. He remembered how his dream of the fortune teller’s murder had started seizing him multiple times a day as the time of her death approached, and he hated to think what it meant that he was seeing Jaehyun’s death more often now too. He couldn’t tell if the dream was becoming more vivid as well, or if the intensity of it was only due to the fact that the real Jaehyun was present now, sleeping nearby while the dreamsense showed Taeyong the same disturbing scenes, and that they had been spending so much time together. Despite Taeyong’s misgivings, his unease around Jaehyun had inevitably lessened as he grew more accustomed to his presence, and saw how invested he was in discovering more about Mr. Walrick and whatever awful business had led to Madame Russo’s death. 

When they’d returned to the boarding house after the party at the hotel, Jaehyun had insisted Taeyong go up to the room while he got them food from the kitchen, even though it was long past supper. Taeyong was glad to have the room to himself for a few moments while he changed out of his suit, and when Jaehyun returned he went out to the bathroom down the hall to give him privacy as well. They’d been in close quarters for a few days, but after everything that had transpired in Mr. Walrick’s office, the thought of staying in the room while Jaehyun undressed was strangely mortifying. 

While sharing the meal Jaehyun had managed to put together, they finally had a chance to discuss what they had actually been able to learn in Mr. Walrick’s office, and Jaehyun’s obvious interest in this cut through any lingering awkwardness. Taeyong was still having trouble processing the fact that other people existed who had abilities like him, but Jaehyun had accepted this and was preoccupied with what Mr. Walrick’s interest in these people might be. “It can’t be anything good,” he said seriously. “One has already been killed that we know of, likely others that we don’t know about. But it seemed as though Madame Russo worked for Mr. Walrick for a long time before her death. So if he’s not only after them to kill them, what does he really want with them? And why was she killed in the end?” 

“Perhaps for what she knew,” Taeyong suggested. “From what we’ve heard of her, and from what we read in that file we found, it sounds like there are dreamers who can do much more than I can. People said Madame Russo visited them in their dreams. If she had that much power, and was using it for Mr. Walrick, she must have known a lot about him. He’s grown very powerful here in only a short time, and having someone on his payroll who could see the future or manipulate others through their dreams would have been valuable for him. But for a man with so much to hide, a person with that kind of knowledge is also a serious risk.”

“Hm,” Jaehyun hummed thoughtfully as he ate. But Taeyong kept catching Jaehyun giving him worried glances, as though he had other concerns on his mind that he wouldn’t voice aloud. Later when they were both lying down to sleep, Jaehyun finally said, “You may have been right, perhaps I was reckless to tell others about your dreaming. I’m sorry.” 

Taeyong raised his eyebrows in the dark, surprised. “It’s alright,” he finally said. “You trust John and Ten and Miss Margaret, and they seem deserving of that trust.” 

“Yes,” Jaehyun said, though his voice still sounded distracted, and Taeyong knew he still hadn’t voiced everything that was preoccupying his thoughts. However he didn’t say anything more, and soon Taeyong was asleep, and in the dream.

This time when the dark building appeared before him it felt like the warm rain that pounded down would drown him. His real self tried desperately to fight the dreamsense, but he found himself inside the abandoned stables anyway. His terror was suffocating. He could feel that the sensation of fear was no longer simply his dreamsense telling him to be afraid: his real sleeping self was frightened too. He tried to scream, to run away, to cover his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the body lying there. Jaehyun’s body. He tried to touch Jaehyun’s face, to close his staring, unseeing eyes which were already clouding over with death. But the dream didn’t change, and Taeyong moved through it exactly as the dreamsense wanted him to. 

As soon as the dreamsense finished with him, however, he was wrenched out of sleep, more suddenly and violently than he’d been prepared for. Someone was trying to wake him up. Taeyong had been pulled out of sleep like this after dreams before, especially when he was a child and slept among the other servants. It hadn’t happened in years, however, and he had forgotten how awful it was, even more disorienting than the way he usually woke from these dreams. The dreamsense never let him go until the dream ended, no matter how someone tried to wake him, and this usually meant Taeyong ended up opening his eyes to a flurry of panic from whoever had been trying to rouse him. And he suspected that the dreamsense somehow strengthened its hold on him to keep him in the dream, so coming out of it was worse than usual. 

When Taeyong opened his eyes he couldn’t see anything. His vision was black, with strange flickers of the remnants of the dream he’d had. A distant voice was urgently calling his name, and there was the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, but all he could see for a moment were Jaehyun’s blank, dead eyes. But the voice gradually grew louder, and his vision slowly cleared, and then with a choked gasp he was back in the room in the boarding house. His shock at seeing Jaehyun’s face in front of him was so great that he scrambled backwards until his back hit the wall behind the bed hard. He’d been convinced the dark eyes that looked at him were the dead ones from his dream. 

“Taeyong, shh, it’s me,” Jaehyun was saying, “It’s me.” He was sitting on the edge of the bed, and seemed slightly scared to get closer. 

Taeyong sat curled up against the wall and thought he might choke with how violently his heartbeat pulsed in his throat. But his senses finally started processing his surroundings properly, and told him that he was awake, and that Jaehyun was alive. He tried to slow his breathing and felt his muscles shake as he relaxed. 

“You were calling out in your sleep, I thought--” Jaehyun stopped speaking suddenly as Taeyong rocked forward and pressed his face into Jaehyun’s chest, twisting his fingers weakly into his shirt. He could feel Jaehyun’s heartbeat against his forehead and noticed only now, as the fabric of Jaehyun’s shirt dampened against his face, that he was crying. He focused very hard on breathing, and on the warm, living smell of Jaehyun that enveloped him. “Taeyong?” Jaehyun’s surprised voice was laced with something bordering on fear, and Taeyong hated the thought that he was frightened of him, though he couldn’t blame him. 

“I’ve seen you die,” Taeyong said. His voice was strangely flat and controlled despite his tears. 

“W-what?” 

“The dream I just had.” Taeyong focused on another breath, _in, out_ . “I’ve had it before. You die. Or, no, you’re already dead, in the dream, when I find you.” _In, out, in…._

It was quiet for a long moment. Taeyong expected Jaehyun to ask how he would die, and already despaired at how few details he could actually give. The best he would be able to tell him was never to go near the abandoned stables on his family’s estate, or to get his family to tear the building down, and that was almost worthless. Jaehyun might have been taken to that building against his will, or maybe, though Taeyong shuddered to think of it, he was killed somewhere else entirely, his body only left there afterwards. Taeyong couldn’t shake the feeling that such a superficial warning wouldn’t be enough to prevent the death from happening. Even if that violent death found Jaehyun somewhere else, it would still find him, unless they managed to change something significant enough to truly alter Jaehyun’s path. And Taeyong still knew almost nothing about what that path may be. 

When Jaehyun finally spoke, however, it wasn’t to ask questions. “It’s okay, I’m here, I’m alive,” he murmured, though Taeyong could hear a waver in his voice. Jaehyun touched Taeyong’s back tentatively, then wrapped his arms around him. Taeyong reminded himself to breathe again, _in, out_. He focused on the heat of Jaehyun’s chest against his face and the weight of his arms on his back. “We can find a way to stop it, I’m not going to die.” 

“Madame Russo died,” Taeyong said. His voice was still steady and emotionless. _In, out, in, out_. 

“We didn’t know anything then, we didn’t even know who she was,” Jaehyun said firmly, and his arms tightened around Taeyong’s shoulders as though to emphasize his words. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me, how it happens?” 

“No,” Jaehyun said, so quickly that Taeyong realized he was more afraid than he was letting on. “Someday if you need to tell me you will, but not right now. What matters now is that we’ll stop it. This time we can stop it.” 

Taeyong wasn’t convinced, but he hoped Jaehyun was. He felt guilty for telling him about his dream, for unloading the fear and awfulness of it onto him. But it was a relief all the same. He could not tell Jaehyun about the rest of the dream, which was too shameful, but sharing even part of the burden made it slightly easier. 

“We should sleep,” Jaehyun said after another moment. “You should rest.” 

Taeyong pulled away, running a hand through his hair self-consciously. Jaehyun made to stand, and Taeyong, without quite knowing why, edged over to the far side of the bed near the wall. Jaehyun hesitated, glancing at the space Taeyong had left open for him now on the bed. Taeyong avoided his eyes and lay down on his side with his back to the wall, and after a moment Jaehyun lay down too, keeping himself very still on top of the thin blanket which it was too warm for anyway. He had his hands clasped tightly over his stomach and Taeyong watched him stare up at the ceiling in the dark. He could feel it starting again, the fear of sleeping that had plagued him when he’d been dreaming of Madame Russo’s death. He tried to keep his eyes open, on the Jaehyun who was next to him, breathing and awake, afraid that if he closed his eyes he would see the other Jaehyun who was not. 

As though he sensed that he was being watched, Jaehyun turned his head and looked at Taeyong. “Go to sleep,” he said quietly. “I’m fine, and I’ll still be fine in the morning. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Taeyong stared at him for a moment in the dark, but could feel the tiredness taking over; the dream had not let him rest when he’d fallen asleep before. He tried to force his eyes back open when they drifted closed, and every time he did he saw that Jaehyun was still there, and eventually he relaxed enough to fall asleep completely. 

When Taeyong next woke up, it was morning, and very hot, but the sweat that prickled along the back of his neck was from the sun that glared through the window and slanted across the bed, and not from the terror of another dream. He opened his eyes, and saw Jaehyun’s shoulder right in front of his face, and then noticed with vague surprise that he had curled his hand over Jaehyun’s arm at some point in the night. He blinked at the fabric of Jaehyun’s shirt as memories of the night before returned. He felt less embarrassed than he would have expected; the night felt very distant and almost as though he’d imagined it. Now, in the brilliant light of day, he was only surprised that he had really told Jaehyun about the dream, and that he had clung to him so closely. 

“Good morning,” Jaehyun’s voice came from above Taeyong’s head, low and sleepy. Taeyong swallowed, pulled his hand away from Jaehyun’s arm and leaned back. This put his face directly into the patch of sunlight coming in through the window, which must have been why he’d woken with his face ducked towards Jaehyun’s arm. He couldn’t see Jaehyun’s face clearly anymore with the light in his eyes, but he could make out his movements as he lifted himself up on his elbows and faced him. “I told you I’d still be fine in the morning,” he said, and he reached out and angled his hand so it blocked the sun from Taeyong’s eyes. 

Taeyong blinked as his eyes readjusted and Jaehyun’s face became clearer. He might have preferred having the sun cast everything into a semi-invisible haze of brightness, because something about the way Jaehyun was looking at him made his heart stutter strangely in his chest. He told himself he was imagining things, but then Jaehyun lowered his hand and ran his fingers over Taeyong’s temple. His palm still blocked the sun, and Taeyong stared up at his face, and he knew that everything he saw there was not imagined at all. He heard Jaehyun take a breath, as though he was about to say something, but he didn’t speak, and only leaned down and kissed Taeyong on the mouth. 

The press of his lips was soft, and slightly dry, and Jaehyun’s thumb traced gently over Taeyong’s cheek, and for a brief moment there was not a single thought in Taeyong’s head, and he let his eyes close. But as soon as they did, scenes from his dream appeared against his eyelids, a confusion of images between the bed with the calico quilt and the dark rain-soaked stables, and back again. Taeyong opened his eyes and pulled away, startled. He could not let either of them get closer to that dream. Only a week ago all of this had still seemed unimaginable, but now Jaehyun had kissed him, and he had not minded, and he knew that what he had dreamed of them doing in that bed was not so impossible. And this meant Jaehyun’s death was not impossible either. He couldn’t let either premonition come true.

Taeyong sat up and climbed awkwardly off the foot of the bed, avoiding even brushing against Jaehyun’s long legs where they stretched out beside him. He heard Jaehyun shift as he sat up too, but he said nothing. Taeyong washed his heated face and combed his fingers through his hair, trying to ignore the sensation that Jaehyun’s eyes were tracking his every move. He cleared his throat, eyes firmly on his own reflection in the mirror. “We should go down to breakfast,” he said stiffly, and slipped out of the room. Jaehyun didn’t try to stop him. 

As he made his way down the stairs, he couldn’t stop himself from touching his lips. It didn’t quite feel real, that someone had kissed him, for the first time, and that that person had been Jaehyun. He shook his head, frowning, and rushed the rest of the way down the stairs to the dining room. 

Jaehyun entered the dining room some time later, greeted Taeyong and the other boarders warmly, and sat down to eat as well. It was as though nothing had happened, and Taeyong was relieved as breakfast continued normally until Miss Margaret appeared in the doorway. She beckoned to Jaehyun and Taeyong, looking serious, and Taeyong felt uneasy as they entered the kitchen and she closed the door behind them. 

“Did you find anything, at the party?” Miss Margaret asked without preamble. 

Jaehyun glanced at Taeyong and then said, “It seems like Mr. Walrick is searching for people like Taeyong, who can dream. First we learned that Madame Russo could, and at the party we found papers in his office about other dreamers. Newspaper stories and notes and such.”

“You got into his office?” Miss Margaret asked. “Did anyone see you?” 

“I don’t think so,” Jaehyun said uneasily. 

“We overheard one of his men, one of the men I saw kill Madame Russo,” Taeyong added. “He was talking to a maid about some of the guests. Mr. Walrick had invited the guests personally to stay in the hotel, and it seemed the maid was being paid to keep an eye on them, to confirm if they could dream.” 

“Do you think they’re in danger?” Miss Margaret looked at them intensely. 

“I think anyone who crosses paths with Mr. Walrick is in danger,” Jaehyun said. “But I think he’s… collecting information about these people, for some reason. Or maybe looking for someone to replace Madame Russo, and use their dreaming to do whatever it was she did for him.” 

Miss Margaret eyed them thoughtfully, then turned abruptly towards the oven and busied herself checking on whatever was baking inside. Taeyong was just thinking that maybe this was her way of indicating the conversation was over when she said, without turning, “I know another dreamer.” It was quiet for a beat, and then Miss Margaret closed the oven door and straightened, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the day and the added heat radiating out of the oven. “I won’t go into the details because those aren’t for me to tell, but her father lost his business due to Mr. Walrick. Needless to say, they share my animosity towards the man. But that’s not so much why you should meet her. The dreamer… her abilities are advanced. I think it might be helpful for you.” Miss Margaret looked directly at Taeyong as she said this. “Took me some time to convince her to meet with you, but she’s finally agreed. Her name’s Alma. Her family lives on the west side of town, here.” She handed them a small sheet of paper with a scrawled address and some jotted directions. “She’ll be expecting you, though I can’t promise she’ll be terribly welcoming.” She gave a wry smile which Taeyong thought he might understand better after meeting this Alma. 

“Thank you,” Jaehyun said. 

“Good luck.” Miss Margaret turned back to the oven again, and this time it was clear the conversation was indeed over. 

On their way to find Alma, Jaehyun decided they should go by the hotel and try to talk to the guests in room 602, if only to warn them about Mr. Walrick. They’d decided to take Commodore and Windfall, since the address Miss Margaret had given them was across town, and Taeyong was glad to wait in the street with the horses while Jaehyun went inside to charm his way up to room 602. But he came out again only a few moments later. 

“They’re leaving already,” he said. 

“What?” 

“I managed to get upstairs, and their room was open. They were all packed up, so I asked why they were leaving so soon, hadn’t the stay been nice and such, as though I worked there. But from the sound of it, the plan was always for this to be only a short visit. The man--the old woman’s son--mentioned a medical procedure, something new and experimental, said Mr. Walrick had invited them to see if the woman might be eligible for it. When I asked what the procedure was for… the son was vague. It sounded like he wasn’t quite sure himself of the specifics. I can’t imagine how Mr. Walrick convinced them to trust him, but the woman is quite old and seemed a bit fragile, in the mind you know. Maybe they were willing to try something just because Mr. Walrick made it sound promising. But the man told me after they’d done some tests it turned out the procedure wouldn’t be ‘compatible’ with his mother’s constitution. Again, he didn’t seem to know anything specific. They tested his mother’s blood, he said, then told him she wouldn’t be able to get the procedure and they could return home. Although it took his mother a few days to recover from the tests and be well enough to travel.” 

“What kind of test was it that required days to recover?” Taeyong asked, as Jaehyun swung himself up into Commodore’s saddle beside him. 

“My question exactly,” Jaehyun said. “All he said was ‘they tested my mother’s blood.’ He didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about any of it, though. Perhaps the test was perfectly normal and it was just a matter of his mother’s poor health.”

“Or maybe they weren’t really doing tests at all…” Taeyong said, staring down the street. 

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not… sure.” Taeyong nudged Windfall into a walk and Jaehyun fell into pace beside him. “In my dream of Madame Russo, she was… bleeding. I didn’t think it was odd before because everything about her death was so violent. But she was strangled, so why was she bleeding? And before the men… hung her, one of them did something to her arm. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but there was no blood anywhere before that, and then when she was hanging it was dripping onto the floor. Maybe they just cut her somewhere, though I don’t know why they would, as she was already dead. So perhaps they were taking her blood, and the reason the woman at the hotel took time to recover from the ‘test’ is because they took her blood too, in a larger quantity than would be normal.” They rode along in silence for a moment, while Jaehyun checked the paper with Miss Margaret’s directions and led them down another street.

“Do you think it could be some sort of test for dreamers?” Jaehyun asked. “To see if someone possesses that ability?” 

“Perhaps,” Taeyong frowned. “But they already knew Madame Russo could dream, so why would they need to test her after she was dead? In fact, they knew the woman in room 602 could dream as well, because the maid was spying on them and reported it to Mr. Fisk.” 

They turned again onto a narrower street. “So if it isn’t a test, they’re just… collecting blood from people?” Jaehyun sounded grim. “Why would they do that?” Taeyong said nothing. If this was indeed what Mr. Walrick was doing, he could not begin to imagine why. “Do you think there was never a medical procedure, and that was just an excuse to run these mysterious tests on her?” 

“Maybe,” Taeyong said. “We also know Mr. Walrick might be trying to find another dreamer to work for him after Madame Russo. Perhaps he invited this woman to see if she would be a good replacement, but since she’s so old he decided she wouldn’t be useful to him, and let her leave.” 

“If that’s true, then the old woman is lucky she only lost some blood. But it means Mr. Walrick must still be looking for another dreamer to use.” Jaehyun glanced at Taeyong with the same worried expression he’d had the night before. 

Taeyong looked firmly ahead as they rode down another street. He was becoming less certain that taking the horses had been wise. The streets they followed were not ones they’d been down before, and as they picked their way along, their surroundings grew noticeably more run down. The buildings were blackened with soot that Taeyong could feel in his throat when he breathed, and the stench of the city which he’d been growing accustomed to was chokingly strong here. The streets and alleys, muddy despite the dry rainless summer, became too narrow to let in even the slightest breeze, and the heat collected and grew stagnant. Sweat rolled down Taeyong’s back under the heavy air, and he could see that Jaehyun beside him looked almost disheveled, quite far from his usual state. Soon, they were the only ones to be seen on horseback, and people stared up at them as they passed. The people here looked almost as filthy as the buildings around them, and Taeyong thought with a shiver, _This could have been me._ He did not like being so strongly reminded of how much he owed the Jungs. 

When they finally reached the address Miss Margaret had given them, it was a building much like the rest they’d passed: low, blackened brick set close to the muddy road. Two small children sat on the step at the front door, which was open. 

Jaehyun surprised Taeyong by swinging himself down from Commodore, unconcerned when his clean boots splashed down into a fetid puddle. “Hello,” he said to the children on the steps. “We’re looking for a woman named Alma. Does she live here?” The children stared up at him, and then one pointed silently towards a narrow alley at the side of the building. 

Jaehyun thanked them and started leading Commodore towards the alleyway, and after a moment’s hesitation Taeyong reluctantly dismounted as well and followed. No sunlight shone into the alley, and even the sliver of sky that was visible above them, which Taeyong knew was cloudless and bright blue, looked hazy and dull. They had to walk single-file with the horses, and Taeyong almost walked straight into Commodore when Jaehyun suddenly stopped at a door in the side of the building. Jaehyun stepped forward and knocked loudly. As Taeyong edged around Commodore to get closer he could hear noises inside: a child crying, voices speaking over each other, and then a woman yelling, _“Alma, go get the door!”_

Jaehyun looked at Taeyong as though to say, _Well, that was easy._ A moment later the door flew open, and both of them faced empty air for a moment before they looked down, and saw a small girl staring suspiciously up at them. She looked to be about twelve, and despite the miserable surroundings her hair was neatly braided and she looked cleaner than the children at the front of the building had been. 

“Who are you?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. 

“Er, hello miss. My name is Jaehyun, and this is Taeyong. Miss Margaret sent us, from the boarding house? Are you… Miss Alma?” 

The girl snorted. “Sure, ‘Miss Alma,’ that’s me.” She stepped forward out of the house and closed the door behind her. “Those horses’ll get stolen if you leave ‘em here,” she said matter-of-factly, and reached up to stroke Commodore’s strong side. She looked very small beside the magnificent horse but seemed completely unfazed by his size. 

“Yes, well, we didn’t exactly expect….” Jaehyun caught himself and trailed off. 

“Didn’t expect people to live in a place like this? Well, we didn’t before, but other people always have, so. Which one of you is it, then?” When they only stared at her, she prompted, “The dreaming one?” 

“Er, me,” Taeyong said after a moment. 

Alma turned to him, and looked him up and down discerningly. Taeyong did not know what to make of this girl. Was she really such a talented dreamer, at such a young age? 

“What can you do?” she asked. 

“Do?” 

“In dreams, what can you do?” 

Taeyong glanced up and down the alley, but it was still deserted, and Alma seemed unconcerned by the conversation they were having, so he said, “I don’t really do anything. I just dream, and the things I see really happen.” 

Alma raised an eyebrow. “That’s all?” 

“Is that so insignificant?” Jaehyun asked. He sounded indignant. 

“Well, yes,” Alma said simply. “That’s the easy part. You never tried to _do_ anything more than that, in your whole life? How old are you?” 

“Well, I never thought… there was anything more to try to do,” Taeyong said, at the same time as Jaehyun muttered, “How old are _you_?” 

“Oh, there’s a _lot_ more to do,” Alma said, comfortably ignoring Jaehyun. “You’re very behind, but I suppose I can help you catch up. If you keep going down this alley to the end you’ll find an overgrown lot, with a burned out chapel on it that was never repaired. Meet me there tonight, and I’ll try to teach you.” 

“Tonight?” Taeyong asked. 

“Well I’m not sure about you two, but I have things to do and can’t simply sneak off to dream at midday. But I go to the chapel a lot, it’s quiet and no one bothers me there, unlike at home.” As if to punctuate her point, the crying child behind the door let out a loud shriek. “Even your horses will be safe there, though I’d try not to draw attention on your way.”

Taeyong glanced at Jaehyun, who looked uncertainly back at him. He also didn’t know what to expect from this strange girl, but Alma, in contrast, seemed very sure of herself, and he didn’t think he could let an opportunity like this pass him by. If he had a chance to learn more about his dreaming, to _do_ more with his dreaming, he had to take it. So he said, “Alright, I’ll be there.” 

Jaehyun was still looking at him as he nodded and said, “So will I.” 

Alma gave a solemn nod to them both, then turned on her heel and disappeared back into her house, leaving Taeyong and Jaehyun to edge the horses back out of the narrow alley, and ride back to the boarding house. 

Alma’s neighborhood at night was simultaneously more unnerving and more peaceful than it had been during the day. The streets were mostly empty, except for the slumped forms of a few sleeping people and a man who stood on the corner muttering to himself. The streets were unlit and most of the buildings were also dark, unlike the rest of the city. The heat of the day remained trapped here between the close buildings, and the air still had a swamp-like quality. But the moonlight was bright enough to light their way as they rode through the silent streets, and the pale light hid the grime and mud and gave the scene a softened look. 

Taeyong was almost surprised when they found the burned chapel exactly as Alma had said they would. When they emerged from the alley, they were closer to the edge of the city than Taeyong had expected, and trees encroached on the unpaved track that wound through some decrepit buildings before fading into a formless stretch of mud in the distance. Trees surrounded the chapel too, young saplings that looked as though they’d grown there since the long ago fire that had destroyed the building. Between the trunks grass grew instead of only mud. The building itself was small and made of stone, and still mostly standing, though half of the roof had fallen in. Taeyong wondered why it had never been fixed. 

They dismounted and led the horses up to the front of the building. The doors were gone, and only an enormous gaping archway remained. 

“What are you waiting for? Come inside,” Alma’s voice came from inside the doorway, making them both jump. 

Jaehyun took the horses to tie them up somewhere out of sight and Taeyong walked inside, staring around as his eyes adjusted and he could make out the strange space he’d stepped into. The moonlight slanted through the missing roof and filled the interior with an almost ghostly light, but instead of feeling afraid Taeyong felt calm. Although it looked nothing like John and Ten’s cottage, he was reminded of how peaceful it had been there. Here was another place that seemed to exist apart from the rest of the world. Even the smell of the city didn’t seem to penetrate here, and instead the air smelled like the newly growing trees that stretched through the broken windows and even pushed their way up through the destroyed floor. It felt as though he’d already entered a dream. 

“Oh,” Jaehyun’s voice suddenly sounded behind Taeyong and he turned, saw Jaehyun staring around with the same expression of awe that must have been on his own face. 

“I told you it’s nice here,” Alma said. Taeyong turned and saw her sitting on the sill of one of the empty windows. She hopped down and beckoned, but when they both stepped forward she said, “No, only the dreaming one.” 

Taeyong looked at Jaehyun, who looked worried. “It’s alright,” Taeyong said, and to his surprise Jaehyun nodded and stepped back to lean in the doorway and wait. He continued forward to the front of the chapel where Alma now waited. Taeyong noticed as he approached that the walls, which he’d thought were intact, were actually broken here, an entire corner where the stones had been split apart by the trunk of an enormous tree that twisted weirdly into the building and stretched up through the broken roof. On the ground beneath the tree there was a large, rough-looking blanket, and a small bowl filled with what looked like scraps of wood that smoked slightly and filled the air with a strange scent. 

“It will help us sleep,” Alma explained as she crouched on the blanket. Taeyong hesitated, then sat down carefully as well. “So, you’ve only had the dreams that show you the future so far, right?” Taeyong nodded. “As I said, that’s where every dreamer starts. You just witness those dreams, but we can also do a lot with dreams that we control more actively. I should warn you that as your dreaming ability grows, the premonitions you’re shown might become more intense, since you’ll have more power to change the things you’ve seen.” 

“The dreamsense--er, I mean, some of the premonitions I’ve been shown have already been terrible,” Taeyong said. 

“Dreamsense?” Alma said.

“That’s how I think of it, the… force that shows me these dreams, that controls what I see.” 

Alma looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “The ‘dreamsense’ though, that’s just you, your own mind. You’re the one who can do this, and all you have to learn is how to use your power. It’s yours, not anyone else’s.” 

Taeyong stared at her earnest face in the dim moonlight. “But I’ve never been able to change those dreams, they always play out the same way and I’m powerless inside them. And then they come true, unless I change something in real life.” 

“Powerless? Isn’t seeing the future power in itself? You’re right, we can’t change anything inside those dreams, because they’re predictions, not things someone has imagined. But the ‘dreamsense’ isn’t an outside force that’s working its magic on you. It’s _your_ magic, that _you’re_ working in order to tap into some vision of the future that most people can never see. And once you see that future, you _can_ work to change it, not only in real life, which is limiting, but by visiting others’ dreams. When you enter another person’s dream, a normal dream, the possibilities become endless. People are easily influenced by what they dream, even if they pretend to be logical beings, and you can steer them towards or away from the futures you’ve seen. Even people you’ve never met can be reached through dreams. But that takes practice. So, you’ll practice with my dreams.”

Taeyong was still trying to wrap his head around everything he’d heard so far. The idea that the dreamsense was power, and was his own, was difficult for him to believe. Especially recently, as he’d seen such terrible things, he had only felt used or cursed. And knowing that all along he could have been doing more now made him burn with guilt. If he’d learned this as a child, if he’d pushed his own abilities as Alma had, maybe he could have saved Madame Russo. 

Alma was still talking, and he tried to focus again. “There’s a crucial moment,” she said, “the only moment when you can slip into another’s dream. It’s that moment right before you fall fully asleep, when your thoughts start to turn towards dreams instead of logic, but you’re still aware enough to recognize how strange and dreamlike your thoughts have become. If you do nothing, you’ll fall asleep and slip into your own dreams. But you could also easily decide to wake up fully. Or, in our case, we can decide to slip into someone else’s dreams instead. When you first try this it’s easiest to enter the dreams of someone nearby, because you have less control. But eventually you’ll be able to enter anyone’s dreams, even if they’re far away. You learn to feel people’s dreams just… existing out there, even the dreams of people you don’t know. But once you pass that moment and fall fully asleep, you’re stuck wherever you are. You’d have to wake up and start again to find a different dream. You should be able to find mine, since I’m right here, and have practiced this a lot myself.”

“Okay….” Taeyong wasn’t sure he’d processed half of what Alma had told him, but when she lay down he did the same, and stared up at the silver-lit branches above him and the jagged edge of the ruined roof against the sky. The smell of whatever Alma was burning filled his nose, and he found himself growing drowsy despite his nerves. 

The next thing he knew, Alma was shaking him awake. “What?” 

“You fell asleep. Try again,” she said and went to lie back down without sparing him another glance. 

Taeyong blinked groggily for a moment as Alma drifted back to sleep, then lay down and closed his eyes again. He tried to pay more attention as he grew sleepy and his thoughts started to drift, and this time he felt a strange tenuous space open up in his mind as he neared sleep. He tried to hold himself there, and think of Alma’s sleeping presence nearby, and find her dreams, but it was hard to simultaneously focus and relax his mind towards sleep, and once again he found himself being woken up moments later. 

The third time he tried, he recognized the moment more easily, could think _now now now_ , and he stretched his mind out, imagined expanding this space between sleeping and waking so that it would encompass other people’s thoughts, and then he could feel them, not only Alma’s, but the dreams of a whole town of people brushing up against his own, as though he were in a chamber with an infinite multitude of doors leading into other minds. He tried to pull back from the overwhelming sensation of this, and found Alma again, the clearest, closest door. He passed through…

_...He’s in a bright sunlit wood. There are buildings between the trees, fitting in spaces they should not fit, entire palaces and fortresses in the tiniest gaps between the trunks. He senses people, in the buildings and walking between them, but can’t quite make them out. He wonders if Alma knows these intangible figures or if they are just anonymous crowds that occupy her dream._

_“You made it.” Taeyong looks around and sees Alma standing beside him. She looks quite real in contrast to the blurred figures that pass through the trees around her._

_Taeyong tries to speak but finds he can not. Now that he is in the dream he can feel his own familiar dreamsense processing everything around him, but he can also feel another force working on the dream, and this force is stronger. It shapes the landscape he sees around him, and it pulls at him as well, as though trying to absorb him into the dream. Taeyong frowns and tries again to speak, but only formless sounds escape his mouth._

_“It’s my dream, not yours,” Alma says. “You need to concentrate harder here, because you’re not the only one in control. Even in normal people’s dreams you can’t be lazy, or you’ll just be carried along by their imagination. Use your own dreamsense, and say what you want to say.”_

_Taeyong opens his mouth again, and hears the strange gibberish leave his mouth once more. Alma looks like she’s trying not to laugh. Taeyong scowls and tries again, closing his eyes and focusing on his own dreamsense, trying to push away the tugging feeling of Alma’s dream. “Don’t… laugh,” he manages, though the effort makes him breathless._

_Alma does laugh, a bright and happy sound. “Good! Speak more, it’ll get easier.”_

_“Where… are we?” Taeyong tries._

_Alma shrugs and looks around. “Nowhere real,” she says. “It’s just… a dreamscape. You can change the surroundings, when you’re in someone else’s dream, show them places or people you want them to see. And of course you can talk to them, which is the easiest way to tell them what you want them to know, but shaping a whole experience helps make sure they remember properly when they wake up.”_

_“Isn’t that... too much to do to a person?” Taeyong asks. This has been worrying him the more he’s learned. Isn’t this too much power for one person to have, to be able to manipulate someone’s subconscious thoughts?_

_Alma looks at him thoughtfully. “Perhaps. But as I said, this ability allows me to guide people based on the visions I’ve seen. I can warn them about something bad, or lead them towards something good. I’m just a child, but I can reach people through dreams that I’d never be able to help in real life. And, well, one time a boy was bothering my older sister so I gave him nightmares for a week until he left her alone.” She glares defiantly at Taeyong as she says this, as if daring him to criticize her. He thinks it prudent to say nothing. Alma’s face clears and she sighs. “But not everyone uses their dreams for good, the way anyone with power might use it for good or for evil.”_

_Taeyong thinks of Mr. Walrick, using Madame Russo’s dreaming for his own corrupt purposes, and perhaps using dreamers’ blood in even more sinister ways._

_“Anyway,” Alma says, “try changing something here.”_

_“What?” Taeyong is startled by the abrupt change in topic._

_“You’re new at this so you won’t be able to change very much, but you could make something appear, like an apple or a bird.”_

_Taeyong looks up at the trees above him. There doesn’t seem to be a sky, or a sun, although the space they stand in is bathed in sunlight. It’s as though the scene doesn’t extend above the tops of the trees, and beyond there is just nothingness. He shivers and looks down, tries to gather his dreamsense and channel it into making a sky, a clear blue summer sky, and the smell of honeysuckle, and…._

_They’re standing in a field of overgrown grass, faded from a summer sun which is visible now in the cloudless sky._

_“This is not an apple or a bird,” Alma says. She sounds impressed._

_“I didn’t really mean….” Taeyong frowns. In the distance is a shape in the grass. He walks closer and Alma follows. As they approach he realizes he’s looking at himself lying beside Jaehyun, but the figures in the grass are both only boys. “It’s a memory,” he murmurs. This is one of the fields behind the Jung estate, where he’d played with Jaehyun as a child. “I really didn’t mean….”_

_“You’ll get more precise with practice. But usually it takes a long time to work up such a big change in someone else’s dream. It did for me, anyway. And yet you’re here changing_ more _than you meant to.” Alma lets out a soft disbelieving laugh._

_Suddenly the dream wavers and the boys are gone. Only Jaehyun remains, but grown now, as he is in real life. He stands and faces them. “Is he… really here?” Taeyong asks uncertainly._

_“No. This is not his dream, and he does not have the ability to come here,” Alma reminds him. “This is only a dream version you’ve created.”_

_“Right.” Taeyong stares at Jaehyun, and can feel his dreamsense humming. This is not like his dreams of Jaehyun’s future. He can feel that he is creating this dream himself, but it’s as though the creation is happening in the background of his conscious thought, almost like any normal dream. When he first changed Alma’s dream it required so much focus, but now Jaehyun is right in front of him in this sunny field, and very close, and his focus is gone, yet his dreamsense continues shaping the dream anyway. Jaehyun lifts his hand and runs his fingertips over Taeyong’s temple, just as he had that morning, and leans towards him--_

Taeyong wrenched himself out of the dream and woke up, gasping. A moment later Alma stirred and woke, and Taeyong glanced at her, painfully embarrassed and afraid. But the expression on her face when she looked at him was more amused than disgusted. “Well, that was interesting,” she said. Taeyong cringed, as his fear faded but his embarrassment intensified. “Does he know?” 

“Know what?” 

Taeyong jumped at the sound of Jaehyun’s voice and whipped his head around to see him standing there. “Uh,” he turned to Alma, who was grinning, and pleaded her with his eyes not to say anything. 

She stood and brushed her hands on her skirt. “Nevermind,” she said primly. 

Jaehyun looked down and reached out a hand to Taeyong. “Are you alright? You look strange.” 

Taeyong scrambled up without taking Jaehyun’s hand and avoided both his and Alma’s eyes. “I’m fine.” 

“Actually,” Alma said, sounding more serious now, “It went better than I expected. You had a lot of control in the dream. It wasn’t perfect,” a smile twitched across her features again, “but it was impressive nonetheless. Are you sure you’ve never done this before? Even by accident, without quite realizing?” 

“I… I don’t think so,” Taeyong said. 

“Hm, it’s surprising that you have such a strong ability and it never slipped out before now. When I was little it just happened for me. I slept with all my sisters and would just end up in their dreams some nights without meaning to. Then I started working at it, and realized I could change things and reach other people’s dreams too. So I thought, if you hadn’t done anything like that in all these years, then maybe you just didn’t have much ability at all. But you clearly do, so it’s strange.” 

“It just never occurred to me,” Taeyong said, “that this was something I could control. I’ve never been in control of much of anything before.” 

“Neither have I,” said Alma seriously. “But that made me dive into the dreams even more eagerly. It’s the one thing in my life that belongs only to me.” 

Taeyong blinked down at her. He would not have expected to find so much understanding in this child half his age, and he wondered at her determination to seize her power and grow it, while he had never pursued his. He could remember telling Jaehyun about his dreams when he’d been young, but his excitement about what he could do faded when he lost that friendship. But it didn’t seem as though Alma had ever depended on anyone else to shape her feelings about her dreaming, and her abilities had become stronger for it. Taeyong wasn’t sure if her independence at such a young age impressed him or made him slightly sad. 

They walked out of the chapel together, and Taeyong almost regretted returning to the real world. 

“Can we meet again, to practice more?” he whispered tentatively when they reached Alma’s front door in the alley. 

She nodded. “But you can practice on your own too, try to enter others’ dreams.” She glanced briefly at Jaehyun. “Don’t overdo it, though. You don’t truly rest when you’re dreaming like this.” 

Taeyong remembered the exhaustion he felt after his dreams of the future and nodded, but he was excited, and eager to try this again as soon as he could. 

Taeyong had no idea what time it was when he and Jaehyun reached the boarding house and crept quietly up to their room, but he could tell the moon had slid far across the sky from where it had been when they’d left. He lay alone in the narrow bed; Jaehyun had not tried to join him in it again, for which he was glad. As he closed his eyes and let himself relax, he couldn’t help but seek out that space again, that moment when everyone’s dreams seemed to be available to him. He didn’t quite mean to find Jaehyun’s, but he found it nonetheless, and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out towards it in his mind. By the time he told himself he should pull away it was too late, and he was asleep in Jaehyun’s dream instead of his own. 

_He finds himself outside a sprawling collection of buildings that he doesn’t recognize. It’s dusk. There are no leaves on the branches of the trees and a pale layer of snow blankets the ground, but since his body is asleep in the boarding house on a hot summer night the dream still feels warm._

_“You’re here.”_

_Taeyong turns and sees Jaehyun walking towards him, smiling, and his stomach twists guiltily. He feels as though he’s intruding. “I didn’t mean to come here, to your dream. I’m sorry, I can wake up.”_

_“Don’t wake up.” Jaehyun is suddenly very close. He puts his fingers under Taeyong’s chin, tils his face up and kisses him. The kiss is firmer than the real kiss that morning had been, but the dream makes the sensation of it vague and hard to pinpoint, and time doesn’t seem to be moving in a steady sequence. Jaehyun’s fingers are on Taeyong’s chin, and then he is cupping his face tightly in his hands, and then his arm is wrapped around his waist and his tongue is in his mouth, and then his hand is back at his chin, and the kiss is gentle and chaste once more. Taeyong notices the same tugging sensation he’d felt in Alma’s dream, though it’s much fainter, and he knows that Jaehyun’s dream is trying to carry him along with it. It makes him dizzy to think that everything that’s happening is coming from Jaehyun’s imagination, but he doesn’t fight against the dream, or try to change it. He knows it’s a bad idea, but nothing that happens here is real. Here, he can give in for a moment, and it won’t bring either of them closer to Taeyong’s visions of their future, or to Jaehyun’s death._

_He’s lying on his back. Jaehyun is over him, kissing his mouth and his jaw and his neck. Taeyong remembers they’d been outside in the snow but the dreamscape around them seems to have disappeared, and his face heats with embarrassment as he realizes that Jaehyun, without any supernatural dreaming ability, has let the rest of the dream go as Taeyong fills his thoughts instead. He can feel warm skin against his own, Jaehyun’s hands on his chest and stomach. He’s not quite sure in the midst of the vague dream how much clothing either of them is wearing anymore, but he isn’t even aware enough of his own body to feel self-conscious. Jaehyun kisses over his chest…._

_Taeyong is sitting up, and Jaehyun lies under him, his hands on his waist. The expression on Jaehyun’s face as he looks up at Taeyong is strangely vivid despite the lack of detail in the rest of the dream. Jaehyun rolls his hips up and makes a soft sound full of want and Taeyong can feel the hard press of his arousal beneath him. His face burns and he pulls away--_

Taeyong woke, panting and half hard in bed in the boarding house. His head ached but arousal still coursed through him. He covered his mouth quickly with his hand, trying to quiet his breathing and praying Jaehyun wouldn’t remember anything about the dream in the morning. But even as he thought this, Jaehyun spoke softly from where he lay on the floor. 

“Was that really you?” 

Taeyong went still. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… that was a mistake.” 

It was quiet for a moment, and Taeyong worried the silence was because Jaehyun was angry at him for invading his dream and letting those things happen there. There was a rustling sound, and then he saw Jaehyun’s head appear above the edge of the bed as he sat up. Taeyong sat up quickly himself and pulled his knees self-consciously to his chest. “I don’t think it was a mistake,” Jaehyun said. “I… I’d like to do it again.”

Taeyong’s chest ached. “No, we can’t. We shouldn’t.” 

Jaehyun pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the bed, and Taeyong leaned slightly away from him. “This isn’t wrong, Taeyong.” Jaehyun’s voice was still quiet. When he reached out and touched Taeyong’s ankle, the only part of him he could reach, Taeyong couldn’t quite make himself flinch away. “There’s nothing wrong with this.”

“That’s not it,” Taeyong managed. The room seemed hotter than even the summer weather warranted and he felt slightly out of breath. He kept reliving what had happened in Jaehyun’s dream, what he’d felt, and what Jaehyun’s reaction to him had been. He still couldn’t believe he could have such an effect on anyone. 

“Then what is it? Please tell me, or just--” Jaehyun’s fingers tightened slightly around Taeyong’s ankle as he leaned forward. 

Taeyong couldn’t bring himself to admit that this, whatever was happening between them, was part of his dream and seemed to connect to Jaehyun’s death. He couldn’t admit why he was really so scared. So he asked, “Why are you being like this?” And as soon as he asked the question out loud, he realized he desperately wanted to know the answer. 

“I just,” Jaehyun faltered. “I want… you.” He frowned as though this wasn’t quite what he’d meant to say. 

“No, I mean, why are you being kind to me? Why have you been treating me as though we’re friends? It’s… confusing. This isn’t who you’ve been around me all these years. You barely spoke to me since we were children. I keep feeling that one of these Jaehyuns must be a lie. Either this kind one who wants to… kiss me is a lie, or the cold one who looked down on me as nothing more than a servant for almost our entire lives was a lie, and I can’t imagine why you would lie either way.” 

“This isn’t a lie,” Jaehyun whispered. He pulled his hand away from Taeyong’s ankle and left it resting limply against the sheets. “I promise this isn’t a lie.” 

“So you invented the other version instead? Why? To hurt me? To make sure I knew my place, like the rest of the staff? It would have been fine, if that was how you’d always treated me. It would have been completely normal to treat a servant that way. But we were friends. I almost convinced myself I’d imagined that time, but I know I didn’t. We were friends, and then one day you acted like you didn’t even know me, and continued to act that way for years, until now. I want to… believe in this now. But I just don’t understand.” _And it scares me_ , Taeyong thought, _how easily you can change who you seem to be._

Jaehyun was quiet for a moment. He’d stopped looking at Taeyong and was gazing out the window instead, though he didn’t seem to be truly seeing anything that was in front of his eyes. “There was a boy when I first went to school,” Jaehyun finally said quietly, his gaze still firmly fixed on the window. “He was around my age, but he wasn’t a student. He was the son of the cook. They lived nearby and he helped his mother sometimes. He seemed always to be around, following the students and talking to us and trying to play with us. He was nice enough, and I didn’t think anything of it. But the other boys, they... weren’t kind to him. I didn’t even realize at first, that their jokes were at his expense, that they mocked him. But I slowly learned, and saw that this boy could not ever be friends with us. And I… I also stopped being nice to him, and I became friends with the other boys, with my peers. With the boys who thought they mattered more than a cook’s son. And all the teachers and all the parents and everyone else also thought we mattered more than the cook’s son, and I believed it. 

“But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was that the boy didn’t ever cry or fight back. He’d still follow us around. He’d laugh at even the cruelest jokes. I wasn’t sure if he put up with it because he was desperate to be around these sons of powerful families, or if he truly believed that was what friendship was, that their teasing just fell within the normal banter between friends. Those boys had this way of making a person feel incredibly small all while keeping a smile on their face.” Jaehyun shook his head sharply, as though to shake some thought or memory out of his mind. “The lesson I learned from seeing all that was the wrong lesson, but it was an impactful one all the same, and I decided I couldn’t be friends with you either.”

“Because I was a servant, like the cook’s boy at your school,” Taeyong said. 

Jaehyun looked at him. “No,” he said emphatically. “Because I didn’t want you to ever become like that. Those boys at school… the cook’s son saw them and their wealth and status and believed they were worth following, and when they laughed at him he laughed too because he believed they were right to treat him like nothing. That wasn’t the boy’s fault, he’d probably been taught all his life that the students were above him. But you never followed anybody. If anything, I was the one following you, and it wasn’t just because you’re older. You seemed to know yourself, and I wanted to be like that. But then I went to school and learned, or thought I learned, that who you think you are doesn’t matter, because everything revolves around money, and status, for those who have it as well as for those who don’t. And I didn’t want to bring that world back to our friendship. I didn’t want us to be different, but I’d learned that we were, and I believed that difference between us would soon shape our every interaction, the way it shaped every interaction I had with anyone else. I didn’t want you to ever start to follow me the way the cook’s son followed us at school. So I pushed you away instead, and then when I wanted to undo that stupid choice and be your friend again, or something… more, I told myself you were better off keeping your distance from me anyway, and I was a coward, and I did nothing.” 

Taeyong’s mouth was dry, and it took him a moment to speak. “So what’s changed, now?” 

Jaehyun shifted towards Taeyong on the bed but did not try to touch him again. “I’m no longer a child,” he said, with almost startling sincerity in his gaze. “I’m now a man, and I know myself. Maybe not completely, but better than I ever have. And I know that there are different kinds of power to admire, not only money, and those priorities are what truly shape who a person is.” 

Taeyong looked out of the window. “That sounds like a thing that only someone who has always had money could say.” 

“Yes, perhaps you’re right,” Jaehyun said. “I won’t pretend to regret the life I’ve been given, or deny that it’s brought me many benefits. But there are still other things that matter to me. And I know that even though our circumstances are different, there are other things that matter to you too.” Taeyong looked back at Jaehyun, unable to ask what those things might be. “I thought what I saw at school was the way the entire world worked, and maybe it is in many ways, but you still know yourself, just as you did when we were young. You would always have known those boys were wrong to treat people that way, no matter how respectable their families were. And,” Jaehyun continued softly, “You have an incredible power. I know it’s not the same, to have a power that’s a secret from the world. But it’s still within you. It still matters.” 

Taeyong thought that only days ago he would have denied this, but now, after dreaming with Alma and seeing how much more he could do, he thought Jaehyun might not be wrong. It really had started to feel something like power, to embrace an ability he’d never fully understood and make it his.

“So,” Jaehyun whispered, shifting closer to him. “This isn’t a lie. I’m not a lie. I’d like to say the me that treated you badly was a lie but that would only be an excuse. It wasn’t a lie, I was just wrong, about everything, and I’m sorry. But please believe the me that’s here now, asking for you, and wanting you, because this is the most honest me I could ever hope to show.” 

Taeyong’s mouth parted in shock and he was glad the darkness covered the heat in his cheeks. It baffled him that Jaehyun could say such things, and sound so certain. He blinked and closed his mouth, and forced himself to remember that Jaehyun would die, that he had changed nothing to prevent his death, and that this was the only thing he could grasp that might redirect the path of the dream. “I--I believe you,” Taeyong took a steadying breath. “But I can’t do this. We can’t do this.” 

Jaehyun looked at him for a long moment, and his fingers flexed against the sheets, but then they loosened, and he nodded tightly, and slipped off the bed to lie back down on the floor. Taeyong lay down as well and stared at the ceiling. It took a long time for his heart to stop pounding. His head throbbed dully with every beat. He was very careful, when he finally started drifting off, to slip straight past everyone else’s dreams, and when he fell fully asleep even his visions of the future were blessedly absent. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Are you ready?” Jaehyun asked._
> 
> _Taeyong blinked. The room at the boarding house came into focus, and he could make out Jaehyun standing awkwardly a few paces from the bed. “Yes,” he said, pleased when his voice didn’t waver._
> 
> _“Not too long,” Jaehyun said._
> 
> _Taeyong’s mouth twitched into a smile at the echo of Alma’s words, and he wondered for a moment at the strange sequence of events that had led both a wealthy gentleman and a child from the slums to care for his wellbeing. “I know,” he said._
> 
> _“I can’t wake you if you don’t choose to wake, so--”_
> 
> _“Jaehyun, I know. I’ll leave quickly. I just need to see what it’s like, and then I’ll return. And if you shake me hard enough I’ll feel it, and know to come back.”_
> 
> _Jaehyun nodded, though he still looked worried. Taeyong looked up at him and wished he would come sit beside him on the bed, but he didn’t know how to ask. He lay down and looked at the ceiling._
> 
> _“I’ll be right here,” Jaehyun said quietly._
> 
> _Taeyong looked over at him. “I know.” He closed his eyes, and opened his mind._

Over the next week, Taeyong practiced dreaming every night. When Alma was able to get out of her house without too much trouble, they met at the chapel and dreamed under the tree. Alma’s dreams became almost as familiar to him as his own, and they would spend their time there creating fantastical dreamscapes and objects and creatures. On other nights, Taeyong would stay in the boarding house and practice there. Taeyong had been wary of entering Jaehyun’s dreams again, but Jaehyun insisted, albeit rather stiffly, that it was alright and that the practice was important. Taeyong never let these dreams stray too far from his own carefully controlled dreamsense, though sometimes he felt the familiar tug of the dream trying to carry him along in its own direction, and he could feel how that pulling sensation was laced with Jaehyun’s desire. Sometimes he wanted to give in. But he was careful not to. 

By the end of the week, when Alma couldn’t meet him at the chapel, he’d find her in dreams and speak with her there. He started to practice entering the dreams of the other boarders, and then other people sleeping in the city, and then, one night, he found someone sleeping so far away he couldn’t quite pinpoint where they were, and they dreamed in a language he didn’t know. He’d been reluctant to enter strangers’ dreams at first. He still wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t an immoral thing to do to people who had no idea these abilities existed or that the dreams they believed were private were actually so vulnerable. But he’d learned to steer their dreams quickly towards his own creation, and if the dream felt like it showed too much of a person, he woke himself up, although this was unpleasant. 

While the dreaming had gotten easier, almost effortless, the waking had gotten worse. The first few days, Taeyong had been so excited about what he could do that he simply overexerted himself, despite Alma’s warning that he shouldn’t dream for too long at once. He’d feel fine in the dreams, without any real sense of his physical body, so it was hard to remind himself to stop. But when he’d wake, his head would ache terribly. One night he was prevented from dreaming the way he wanted to by the appearance of his dream of Jaehyun’s future. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to be in a dream he couldn’t control, and it was more frustrating than ever. After that dream released him he slipped into the dream of an elderly man across town whose dreams he’d found before, and constructed a dream of such astounding complexity and scale he almost lamented no one else could witness it and admire what he was capable of. When he woke up after this, however, the headache was so blindingly painful it kept him in bed for most of the day. After that, he started being more careful and made sure he left himself hours to sleep normally before morning. And if he ever had a dream of the future, he’d regretfully give up on any other dreaming for the rest of the night. 

The dreaming wasn’t the only thing wearing on him though. Jaehyun’s presence had also become slightly draining. Most of the time, when they ate meals with Miss Margaret or the other boarders, or helped Miss June with the cleaning, or wandered around Coveport just for their enjoyment, or visited Alma, things between them were actually more comfortable than Taeyong had anticipated. There were glimpses in those moments of what their friendship might have been like if they’d never spent years ignoring each other. But in the room at the boarding house, with no one else to keep up appearances for, there were moments that were almost unbearable. Any lapse into silence became strangely weighted. Jaehyun had moved the blankets he slept on farther across the floor away from the bed, and always left the room to change his clothes or when Taeyong changed his own. Taeyong wasn’t sure if this was out of consideration, or resentment, or something else. 

Whatever Jaehyun’s reasons, Taeyong was relieved that the distance allowed him to avoid having to examine any of his own feelings too closely. Everything that had happened between them felt too new for him to trust his own reactions. He’d barely gotten used to the two of them even speaking again, and then Jaehyun had kissed him, and he had not minded, though it made him nervous. The unfamiliar feeling of being wanted was not unpleasant, and the fact that the person who wanted him was handsome and well-respected and could easily have wanted anyone else was especially flattering, but Taeyong wondered if that was all it was. He kept catching himself staring at Jaehyun, examining his face or his hands or the span of his shoulders, as if there would be some clue there into what Jaehyun felt, or what he felt himself. In their room in the boarding house at night, Taeyong had become strangely attuned to whether or not Jaehyun was asleep, even without being able to see him. He told himself it was because this was helpful on the nights when he’d practice dreaming in Jaehyun’s mind. But even when he only needed to sleep, the sensation of lying still, and knowing from Jaehyun’s breathing that he was awake only a short distance away, was strangely excruciating and made his heart pound. One night it shook him so much he sat up and looked over at Jaehyun, and was so startled when Jaehyun turned his head and looked back that he froze. His fingers tingled against the sheets, and he wondered if Jaehyun would get up, and come over to sit on the edge of the bed as he had before. He wondered what he would do if Jaehyun got so close. But Jaehyun didn’t get up, just gave a small smile after an endless moment and said good night. 

Whatever Taeyong might have wanted, however, he reminded himself relentlessly that it didn’t matter. It may have been difficult to control his heartbeat when he thought of Jaehyun in the dead of night, but during the daylight hours he was careful. He was still desperately clinging to the hope that avoiding what he’d dreamed of in the bed with the calico quilt might simultaneously allow them to avoid Jaehyun dying in the abandoned stables. The fact was, if that didn’t work, there was nothing else he had to go on. But trying to simultaneously understand how he felt and push those feelings away left him on edge and worn out.

Taeyong tried to stay focused on his dreaming anyway, because apart from his excitement at what he could do there was also actual urgency to it, and this urgency wasn’t only his own. Part of the reason Taeyong had decided to ignore his qualms about entering strangers’ dreams was because Alma and Jaehyun both had convinced him that this ability might be the key to finding out more about Mr. Walrick, or even finding a way to stop him once and for all. If Taeyong could enter Mr. Walrick’s dreams, he’d be able to learn things he would never share with the world, and even influence him or manipulate him, as Mr. Walrick did to others. But Alma warned him emphatically that Mr. Walrick’s dreams were not to be entered carelessly. She’d tried once years before, when Mr. Walrick had first forced her father out of business and her family had been forced to move to their current home, but had never tried again. 

“It was as though he could sense that I was there in the dream,” Alma said when she told Taeyong and Jaehyun about it one night in the chapel. “That’s never happened before. It was unnerving. He didn’t find me, but that was only because I woke myself up quickly enough. It was as though he knew someone was interfering with his dream, and he was trying to hunt me down.”

“Do you think he can actually dream himself?” Jaehyun asked. “Is that why he was so powerful?” 

Alma frowned and shook her head. “It didn’t feel like that. I’ve entered dreamers’ minds before, sometimes even by accident, when I enter the dream of a stranger and realize they’re like me. I can always tell when the dream I’m in is strong in that way. But this wasn’t like that. The dream was a normal dream, I’m certain of it, and he didn’t seem able to consciously change things there, the way we can. He was just… more aware within the dream than anyone else I’ve ever visited. I never trusted myself to try again. But if you do,” she looked at Taeyong, “You’d have to stay out of sight, undetectable, as though you were only part of his own mind, since he seems able to tell when something is not. I’m not even sure it can be done. Best to first just see if you can enter his dream at all without tipping him off, and leave any changes for another time.” 

“If you weren’t able to enter his dream, though, I won’t be able to either,” Taeyong said. 

“I was only nine years old then,” Alma said briskly. “And I didn’t know what I was getting into. You do. And anyway, you’re as powerful than I am now. More powerful, maybe, if you consider you’ve come this far in only a week.” 

Taeyong didn’t know what to say to this, and luckily was saved from needing to respond one way or another by the sound of the bells in the faraway clocktower chiming midnight, reminding them they all had to return to their own beds to sleep. 

At the start of their second week in Coveport, Taeyong decided he couldn’t put off trying to visit Mr. Walrick’s dreams any longer. He at least had to see if it could be done. Alma and Jaehyun agreed when he told them, Jaehyun in person and Alma in a dream, but both were clearly uneasy. Taeyong was uneasy himself, but also determined, more so than he would have expected from himself. He had only felt helpless when he’d been dreaming of Madame Russo, and he really had been helpless in the end, and she had died because of it. Now he could do so much more. There was no excuse for continuing to hold himself back. Especially not if other lives might be at stake. Especially not if Jaehyun’s life might be at stake. He didn’t know if what he’d seen of Jaehyun’s death really had anything to do with Mr. Walrick, but that dream had continued coming to him every few days and he couldn’t quite believe it was only a coincidence that he was seeing Jaehyun die more often than ever before just as they were crossing paths with a dangerous and powerful man. 

Taeyong had been planning on meeting Alma at the chapel to visit Mr. Walrick’s dream for the first time, but that afternoon she sent a note to the boarding house saying her baby brother was sick and she wouldn’t be able to get away. The thought of delaying again made Taeyong anxious, so he and Jaehyun agreed he should still try at the boarding house instead. It would only be a quick attempt anyway, to feel out the dream and see what he was dealing with. He sent back a note to Alma telling her this and that he’d find her dream to talk to her before he tried. 

That night Taeyong wasn’t able to find Alma’s dream until it was very late; she must not have been able to get to sleep for a long time. Sure enough, when he finally found her she said the baby had kept most of the family up all night, but it finally seemed as though he was past the worst of the illness, and once he had fallen asleep the rest of them could too. 

“Remember,” Alma said sternly. They were standing in a strange building whose most distinct feature was the enormous staircase they were at the top of, while the halls and rooms around them remained vague. “You’ll try to get in, and if you do, don’t stay long. If he doesn’t notice you right away, don’t push it. Just see what you can see there, and leave. And if he does notice you--”

“I’ll leave immediately, I know. I’ll be careful.” 

Alma watched Taeyong discerningly for a moment, then glanced away at a window that seemed to have just materialized in the wall beside the stairs. It looked out onto a featureless hazy blue sky. “I know what it’s like, to feel as though your only chance at truly  _ doing _ anything is through dreams.” Alma looked back at Taeyong with a fierce gaze. “Be careful. Don’t stay long. Your waking life is most important, no matter how much you can do while you sleep, so come back quickly.”

“I--I will,” Taeyong said, startled by the intensity in her words. “I’ll be careful,” he reassured her. 

Alma nodded after a moment and seemed to relax, but then her head snapped sharply to the side. “Ah, he’s awake again,” she sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave Taeyong another warning glance, and then the dream dissolved and Taeyong woke up. 

“Are you ready?” Jaehyun asked.

Taeyong blinked. The room at the boarding house came into focus, and he could make out Jaehyun standing awkwardly a few paces from the bed. “Yes,” he said, pleased when his voice didn’t waver. 

“Not too long,” Jaehyun said.

Taeyong’s mouth twitched into a smile at the echo of Alma’s words, and he wondered for a moment at the strange sequence of events that had led both a wealthy gentleman and a child from the slums to care for his wellbeing. “I know,” he said. 

“I can’t wake you if you don’t choose to wake, so--”

“Jaehyun, I know. I’ll leave quickly. I just need to see what it’s like, and then I’ll return. And if you shake me hard enough I’ll feel it, and know to come back.” 

Jaehyun nodded, though he still looked worried. Taeyong looked up at him and wished he would come sit beside him on the bed, but he didn’t know how to ask. He lay down and looked at the ceiling. 

“I’ll be right here,” Jaehyun said quietly. 

Taeyong looked over at him. “I know.” He closed his eyes, and opened his mind. 

_ Taeyong finds Mr. Walrick’s dream and slips in so easily it takes him by surprise. But of course, Alma was right, this dream is only a normal dream, and it shouldn’t be any harder to get into than any other. Mr. Walrick is not a dreamer. But the dream is different nonetheless. It’s strangely dark and formless. Taeyong has been in enough dreams now to know that some are only made up of vague impressions instead of clear scenes, but the darkness here is unnerving. It seems somehow artificial, as though it’s been fabricated to cloak the true shape of the dream.  _

_ Taeyong ventures forward carefully. The darkness shifts around him. He can make out his own hands in front of him as he walks. But beyond that, only darkness, and shapes moving through it. He feels terribly exposed. But he can sense Mr. Walrick’s dreaming mind, and it doesn’t seem to have registered his presence. It continues playing out whatever this strange dream is beneath the darkness.  _

_ Taeyong continues walking, the darkness continues swimming around him, the shapes in it never seem to get any closer. He gathers his dreamsense, thinking of light, sunlight, electric lights, bright-- _

_ The darkness is gone. Taeyong can see, but his mind aches as he tries to understand what he’s looking at. There is no dreamscape here, only nothingness. The shapes he’d seen moving through the darkness are people, walking to and fro before him in the emptiness, as they might on any city street. But the sight of these people fills him with dread. Everyone is somehow wrong, warped in subtle ways, as though all their parts aren’t arranged quite properly, but it’s impossible to identify the mistakes. Taeyong looks at them and feels bile rise in his throat. His eyes see people like any other, but his dreamsense screams and screams at him that there is something wrong with all of them.  _

_ And then the people look back. The dream sees him. He can feel it. He shouldn’t have summoned light to this place. Mr. Walrick knows someone is here. Taeyong doesn’t think, just starts to run. The wrong-people follow him. He doesn’t look behind him, but his dreamsense feels them there, and he keeps running, spurred by misguided instinct at the sensation of being pursued. He can feel his body being shaken in the bed in the boarding house. This means something. He’s supposed to do something, because someone is shaking him… but fear clouds his dreamsense in a way it never has before. He’s been scared in dreams many times, but the fear has never been linked to any immediate threat to his wellbeing. Now he knows he is in danger. So he runs.  _

_ The ground below his feet falls away.  _

_ He plunges through emptiness, and this saves him.  _

Taeyong woke, gasping and hot, as though his body had really been running. 

“Taeyong? Taeyong,  _ goddamnit _ , you said you wouldn’t stay long!”

Taeyong caught his breath and looked at Jaehyun, who was gripping his arms so hard it hurt. 

“I… I didn’t,” Taeyong managed, though his throat felt tight. “I didn’t,” he said again. “It was only a minute.” 

“What?  _ Look. _ ” Jaehyun stabbed his finger towards the window, and Taeyong looked. The sky was lightening; it was almost dawn. He would have had to have been asleep for at least an hour. 

“What? No, it was only… it wasn’t long,” he said weakly. 

“You’re shaking. Taeyong, what the fuck happened?” 

Taeyong blinked at Jaehyun, startled by the vehemence in his voice as much as by the curse. He looked flushed in the pale light that filtered through the window beside the bed, and there was a sheen of sweat over his collarbones, visible because the top of his shirt was rumpled and unbuttoned, as though he’d yanked at it. Taeyong reached up, unthinking, and traced his finger over the prominent bone, feeling the dampness of Jaehyun’s skin. His head ached dully. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he whispered. 

Jaehyun’s throat moved as he swallowed and he pulled away, his hands tight on Taeyong’s arms. “What are you doing?” he breathed. “What happened in the dream? Taeyong--”

He stopped talking as Taeyong lifted his fingers from his collarbone and pressed them against Jaehyun’s full lower lip. Taeyong genuinely didn’t know how to answer either question, so he said nothing. All he knew was that he didn’t want to remember the dream he’d just seen, at least not before he inevitably had to. It had been so disturbing and yet he had no idea how to describe how horrible it had been. Saying that it had been dark, or that the dream-people had looked strange, felt pathetically inadequate to capture the terror he’d felt. He just wanted to feel something nice for a moment before morning truly came and he had to confront everything, and Jaehyun looked so lovely in front of him in the pale light, and his sweaty skin felt so warm beneath his hand as he laid his fingers against the side of his neck. 

“Are you… sure?” Jaehyun whispered after a moment. 

“No,” Taeyong said. He watched as Jaehyun stared at him, and saw as something in his face seemed to crumple as though in pain, and he leaned forward and kissed Taeyong helplessly. The kiss deepened quickly, full of the suspended desire of the past week, which Taeyong had barely allowed himself to recognize was there until this moment. Jaehyun’s tongue pressed hungrily past Taeyong’s lips as he pushed him back against the mattress. Taeyong wrapped his arms around his neck and was startled but oddly thrilled when Jaehyun sucked in his breath in response. He was struck by how how real Jaehyun’s weight felt on top of him. When they’d kissed in the dream, there’d been no substance to either of their bodies. Now Taeyong’s mind reeled at the solidity of Jaehyun’s body against his own, the pressure of fingers on flesh, the overwhelming heat.

Jaehyun’s fingers fidgeted at the hem of Taeyong’s shirt, then slid underneath over his stomach. His breath stuttered into Jaehyun’s mouth. He wanted more. The terror of the dream which he still didn’t understand already felt much less real than this. Taeyong shifted against the mattress and then stilled when Jaehyun’s thigh pressed between his legs. Pleasure flowed through him even from only this and his headache edged towards dizziness. He could feel that Jaehyun was hard already against his hip, and realized he was pressing against him like this on purpose, and that it must feel just as good for him. Jaehyun moved his mouth down Taeyong’s throat, and murmured his name softly as he sucked at the skin below his ear. Taeyong never would have imagined that such an inconsequential stretch of skin could feel so good under someone’s tongue, and he gasped and tipped his head to bare his throat further. 

The pale dawn light coming through the window had brightened and made his headache throb. A breeze flowed in, too warm to cool off his body at all, but it seemed to smell fresh, and somehow familiar. Jaehyun licked over his neck and pressed his clothed cock harder into Taeyong’s thigh and the pleasure swelled, but something was nagging at the back of Taeyong’s mind now, as though he was missing something that was right in front of his face. 

His face. The mattress. The clean smell. “Wait--” Taeyong pushed at Jaehyun’s shoulders but he didn’t move, just kissed down over Taeyong’s collarbones and squeezed his hands around his waist. Taeyong squinted, and he could see it now. The bedding had been changed. How had he not noticed? He’d even spoken to Miss June when she’d been in the room cleaning earlier that day--or yesterday, now.  _ How had he not noticed? _ The blanket beneath his head had a cheery calico pattern, slightly faded. 

“ _ Wait. _ ” Taeyong pushed Jaehyun hard and scrambled out from under him. He could see Jaehyun’s mouth moving as he said something, a confused expression on his face, but all he could hear was the sound of blood rushing in his ears. Jaehyun reached for him and he jerked away, sliding off the bed and stumbling to stand in the middle of the room. He stared and tried to catch his breath. The blanket, and the pale light of a summer dawn, and the warm breeze; it was all just as he had dreamed. But it made no sense. How had he not recognized this place before now? He’d even had that dream in this very room, and still had woken up oblivious. He’d been trying so desperately to avoid getting closer to this, and yet he’d been sleeping in this very bed for more than a week. He swayed slightly and thought he might be sick. 

“Taeyong? Are you okay?” Jaehyun was standing now too, and Taeyong tried to focus on him. “Did… did I do something wrong?” He seemed nervous to get any closer. 

Taeyong tried to say something but no sound came out. He forced himself to swallow and tried again. “No,” he rasped. “I’m sorry.” He knew it wasn’t believable but he couldn’t explain and also couldn’t manage to form a coherent excuse. He turned to the washbasin and splashed water over his face. He couldn’t take the way Jaehyun was looking at him, with a mixture of confusion and concern and frustration. And he couldn’t take looking at Jaehyun either, who was flushed and disheveled and still obviously hard. Despite everything, part of him wanted Jaehyun to pull him back down onto that cursed quilt and continue what they’d been doing until everything he’d dreamed between them had happened. He just wanted it to be easy. He tried to breathe through his nose to calm his nausea and the strange urge to cry. 

There was a sudden knock on the door. They both jumped and looked at each other. The sun had barely broken over the horizon, and while many in the city and in the boarding house were already awake, it was very early for a knock at the door. For a brief moment, Taeyong wondered if Mr. Walrick had found him in the dream after all. If Mr. Walrick had found him here. 

His fear must have shown on his face because Jaehyun said, “Don’t worry,” and crossed to the door, though not before he’d smoothed his hair and adjusted his trousers in a way that made Taeyong’s face heat up again. 

“Miss Margaret?” Jaehyun asked. 

Taeyong couldn’t see her around Jaehyun’s back, but he heard her say, “A letter came for you, from your mother. It was addressed to me, so I opened it, and thought I should give it to you right away despite the hour.”

There was a rustle of paper, a beat of silence, and then Jaehyun said, “Thank you, Miss Margaret. We’ll be down soon to say goodbye.” 

Jaehyun retreated back into the room and closed the door. Taeyong looked at him quizzically. 

“My father’s taken a turn for the worse,” Jaehyun said stiffly. “My mother asks that I return home.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Taeyong said awkwardly. Jaehyun knelt and started folding his things neatly into his pack, and after a moment Taeyong went to gather his few belongings as well. It was disorienting, to be so suddenly reminded of the world that they’d left behind for these short weeks. He’d spent so much time consumed with dreams he’d almost forgotten that Lord Jung’s illness was the reason Jaehyun had returned to the estate in the first place. 

It only took them a short time to pack their things, and within the hour they were setting off on Commodore and Windfall, back to the main road they’d come in on. There was so much here that was still unfinished. Taeyong wanted to at least speak to Alma before they left, or go see the chapel where he’d first learned how to dream, or even to pass by the clocktower one last time. But Jaehyun was very quiet and Taeyong didn’t know how to break the silence to ask. He felt guilty that he was still dwelling on his dreams when there was now a more pressing matter to deal with. But he still hadn’t spoken of what he’d seen in Mr. Walrick’s dream and that also felt important. At least, he reminded himself, he would be able to reach Alma through dreams now, even from as far away as the Jung estate. 

The summer heat increased around them as the sun climbed, but the day was windy, which cooled the horses enough that they could keep a brisk pace. They stayed on the main road the entire way back, and the wind whipped dust up around them. Taeyong thought regretfully of the cool wood they passed and the small cottage by the stream somewhere within it. But the leisure they’d taken on the way to Coveport had cost them--and Madame Russo--dearly, and they could not make the same mistake again. 

Taeyong barely saw Jaehyun for two days after they returned to the Jung estate. As soon as they arrived, Lady Jung was already rushing out to see her son, and a moment later Taeyong was left standing with Commodore and Windfall as Jaehyun hurried inside with his mother. Jaehyun had squeezed his arm, very briefly, before his mother reached them, but it was hard for Taeyong not to remember being twelve, standing in the cold on the day Jaehyun had first returned from school. But he told himself sternly that things were different now, that Jaehyun’s father needed him and he had to be there for his family. So he brought the horses to the stables and busied himself with tending to them as he always did. 

Over those two days, Taeyong began to think for the first time that the Jung estate was actually so very small. Of course the manor and the lands surrounding it were spacious and sprawling, while the room at the boarding house had been tiny, and he had spent most of his time in that room being overly and uncomfortably aware of Jaehyun’s presence. But here the people who surrounded them knew both him and Jaehyun and had very different expectations for how they would each be spending their time. Taeyong was surprised to realize how accustomed he’d gotten after all to spending time with Jaehyun, and to having the people who saw them together think nothing of it. Now he returned to taking his meals in the kitchen with Cook and the rest of the staff, while Jaehyun ate upstairs. And apart from meals, Jaehyun spent almost all his time with his mother in his father’s rooms. From what Taeyong understood, it would only be a matter of time, and Jaehyun had been called back home as much to say goodbye as to help get his father’s affairs in order and prepare to take over the management of their finances and business interests himself. 

Taeyong visited Alma in a dream the night they returned to the Jung estate. She seemed as disappointed to hear that they had left so suddenly as Taeyong had been to do so, which he found rather touching. But they spent the rest of their time in the dream discussing what Taeyong had seen in Mr. Walrick’s mind. The darkness especially intrigued Alma. They both agreed that although Mr. Walrick wasn’t a dreamer, he had found some way to manipulate dreams nonetheless, although it felt skewed and limited. Neither of them could imagine how he’d achieved this, or what he meant to accomplish by changing his own dreams in these strange ways. 

Taeyong still hadn’t had a chance to speak to Jaehyun about anything. He could have found Jaehyun in a dream the way he had Alma, but people who weren’t dreamers didn’t always remember conversations they dreamed in any detail once they woke up. And if he was honest, he wanted to have a reason to speak to him in person when he could. Apart from passing each other in the halls on occasion, the longest time they had together was one afternoon when the doctor was tending to Lord Jung and Jaehyun escaped to the stables to take Commodore out for a quick ride and clear his head. Taeyong saw Jaehyun and the horse from the kitchens, a dark streak across the distant lawns, and carefully managed to get to the stables before Jaehyun returned. When Jaehyun came in and saw Taeyong his eyes widened in surprise, but then he slid off Commodore’s back almost before the horse had fully stopped and caught him in an almost painfully tight embrace. Taeyong stiffened in his arms, too shocked even to react, but Jaehyun only squeezed him tighter and said, “I’m sorry, just… for a moment.” His skin was very hot from riding in the sun and he was out of breath. Taeyong had just started to raise his hands to Jaehyun’s back when there was a noise behind them and Jaehyun pulled quickly away, raking his hand through his hair and turning to greet Mr. Kim. Taeyong had to turn away from them and press his hand to his chest to try to calm his heart, which skipped erratically behind his ribs. He wished again, desperately, that this could all just be easy. 

Taeyong’s one consolation was that his dream of Jaehyun’s death had not returned. He had changed  _ something _ now, at least, when he’d scrambled out of bed on their last morning in Coveport. He just hoped that changing that part of the dream had truly been enough to change the rest of it. His hope increased when he had a dream of one of the enormous portraits in the front hall falling from the wall and smashing the vases underneath, and he was able to convince James they should check on the fixture the next day to repair it. It was such an inconsequential dream of the future, and it had been so long since he’d had a dream where the stakes were so low, that he couldn’t help but feel something like relief bloom in his chest when he woke up from it. He began to wonder if he could just stay here, and let things return to normal. Guilt lurked behind these thoughts, because even if Jaehyun was safe, Mr. Walrick was still carrying on as usual, and other dreamers still seemed to be at risk. They were no closer to understanding his interest in dreams than they had been when they’d first realized Madame Russo had worked for him, and even Mr. Walrick’s normal waking business tended to leave people suffering in its wake. Taeyong thought of Miss Margaret, and the men who stayed at the boarding house, and Alma and her family. But the temptation to forget all of it was strong. 

On the night of the day when Jaehyun had held Taeyong for that brief moment in the stables, the Moores came to call again from their nearby estate, and Miss Elizabeth walked with Jaehyun in the gardens for a brief time in the evening. Cook remarked approvingly that it would do Mister Jung good to get out of the house for a moment and have some company his own age after being consumed with the slow weakening of his ailing father for days. Taeyong stared out of the kitchen windows at the pleasant summer twilight and saw the way Miss Elizabeth held Jaehyun’s elbow as they walked, and his chest ached. Only a few hours earlier, Jaehyun had held him tightly against his chest, and mere days before that he had slid his hands over Taeyong’s skin and licked his tongue into his mouth. But now he was desperately envious of a simple walk in the garden. 

And that night, when Taeyong finally pushed the image of Jaehyun and Miss Elizabeth out of his mind and slept, the dream returned. 

_ Taeyong is standing in the rain. The rain is warm, and drums against his skin. He’s on the steps in front of the Jung manor. He feels panic rise in him. He needs to find Jaehyun. It might already be too late. He starts to run, slipping on the wet stone stairs, stumbling over the gravel and then into the soft, muddy grass. The rain comes down in sheets; Taeyong can barely see. But then the dark stables emerge out of the grey. No. He tries to stop, but his body doesn’t slow down, and soon, inevitably, he’s inside.  _

_ He blinks rain out of his eyes. Rain pours in through the holes in the roof. And then he sees him. He’s lying on his stomach, and Taeyong’s chest lurches. This is different from the other dreams. He wonders if maybe, maybe…. _

_ He drops to his knees, rolls Jaehyun over, and recoils. He wants to shake Jaehyun, wants to be sure. This dream is different, it should be different. Maybe Jaehyun isn’t…. But his dreamsense is still in control, and his dreamsense is sure. Jaehyun’s face is covered in blood. Dark trails of it still ooze from his ears and his lips. The whites of his open, staring eyes are red, and blood runs like tears over his dirty cheeks. The dreamsense doesn’t let Taeyong reach out to close his eyes.  _

When the dream ended Taeyong scrambled out of bed and vomited into the washbasin before he was even fully awake. He sank to his knees and stared unseeingly at the floor for a long time. His dream had changed, but Jaehyun still died. The most significant difference in the dream, in fact, was that now he no longer got to enjoy those moments with Jaehyun in bed before being forced to see his death. And the dream was undeniably more vivid and detailed. Before there had only been Jaehyun’s dead eyes and the spreading puddle of blood beneath him, as though from a wound. But now…. Taeyong shuddered and couldn’t make himself even wonder what could cause a person to bleed like that. It was as though Jaehyun’s blood had simply decided to leave his body any way it could, had started pouring from his eyes and ears and nose and mouth all on its own. 

Taeyong didn’t realize he’d even stood up until he found himself in the dark, empty halls of the manor. It scared him, to realize how lost in his thoughts, or in his dreamsense, he was. But he didn’t stop walking. He knew where he was going. 

When he reached Jaehyun’s door, it took a very long moment to force himself to actually knock. He had never been inside these rooms before, even when they were children. It felt forbidden, even now when they’d slept in the same small room in Coveport for more than a week. More than that, he knew it was foolish to come here. It wasn’t raining, or even threatening to rain; this wasn’t the night Jaehyun would die. And it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the insistent whisper that had started suggesting that  _ he _ was the true risk to Jaehyun’s life. He couldn’t see how yet, exactly. But it was clear to him, now that he’d seen Jaehyun’s death again, that what exactly had or hadn’t happened in the bed in Coveport wasn’t so important as all the entangled emotions that brought them to that bed in the first place. They were on a path that led them closer together, and this path led ultimately to death. 

Taeyong knew he should not knock. But it didn’t matter. He had seen something horrible, and he was afraid, and he wanted to see Jaehyun and reassure himself that they were both still okay. He wanted to be close to him for even a moment before morning came and they had to retreat back into their separate realms of the estate. Taeyong glanced down the hallway, which was still silent and empty, and knocked. 

Taeyong had to knock twice more, growing increasingly uneasy, before he heard movement inside the room, then hurried footsteps before the door flung wide. 

“Is Father-- Taeyong?” Jaehyun stood in the doorway and blinked, looking confused. 

Despite his fear, Taeyong’s heart squeezed at the sight of Jaehyun, who looked very rumpled as he hurriedly pulled a robe around his bare shoulders. The dim glow of a hastily lit lamp shone behind him. Taeyong glanced nervously around again. “Er, I’m sorry to disturb you, I….” 

Jaehyun stepped back. “Come in,” he whispered, eyeing the dark hallway himself. “What’s wrong?” he asked once the door was closed. “You didn’t… go back into Mr. Walrick’s dream did you?” 

“No,” Taeyong said quickly. They were both still whispering. 

“You never told me what happened there,” Jaehyun said. He eyed Taeyong warily. 

Taeyong gritted his teeth. “I will tell you, but not now. That’s not why I’m here. I had the dream again, the dream of you.” 

Jaehyun looked blankly at Taeyong. They were both still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, but neither of them moved to sit down. “Oh?” Jaehyun finally prompted when Taeyong didn’t speak further. 

Taeyong looked away at the fireplace. “There was more to that dream that I didn’t tell you before. There was another part of it, another scene that would happen before I’d see you die. I changed that other scene a few days ago, and I hadn’t had the dream since, so I thought--I hoped--that I had changed your death too. That maybe it had been enough. But… tonight I saw you die again. It was slightly different, but you still died.” Taeyong’s shoulders slumped and he was suddenly aware of the late hour, and how tired he was. 

“What did you change?” Jaehyun asked. 

“Just… other things I’d seen. At the boarding house. ” 

“What things?” 

Taeyong turned and forced himself to hold Jaehyun’s gaze, though he could feel that the effort was distorting his own expression into something like a scowl. “That last morning there, when we were… in bed.” He gave up and looked away again, this time out the open window, which barely let in a breeze from the still, hot summer night outside. He could see their reflections in the glass. “There was a blanket… anyway, it doesn’t matter. I stopped that part of the dream but I still dreamed the rest of it again, and you were still… dead.” 

“So that’s why you were so startled,” Jaehyun said quietly, more to himself than to Taeyong. “I thought I’d upset you.” 

“...No,” Taeyong said. Jaehyun took a step forward and Taeyong looked up fiercely. “Stay away from those old stables, near the woods.”

Jaehyun went very still. “Okay,” he whispered. He didn’t ask any more questions. Taeyong wasn’t sure if he was holding himself back from asking things he really wanted to know, or if he wasn’t asking because he was afraid to hear the answers. Taeyong knew that his warning was pathetic, but it was the best he could do. Anything else would only horrify Jaehyun, without providing any information that would actually help him. 

Taeyong cleared his throat. “Well, that is what I wanted to tell you. I’m very sorry that I woke you, please sleep well for the rest of the night.” He turned away towards the door. 

“Is that really why you came down here? Just to tell me that? I already knew you were dreaming of my death,” Jaehyun said. Taeyong didn’t respond, but he stopped walking towards the door and stood, torn, his back prickling with the sensation of Jaehyun’s gaze. “You could have told me in the morning. There wasn’t any rush, unless you thought I would die tonight.” 

“No, I--” Taeyong went quiet again as the floor creaked and Jaehyun stepped closer. “I did not think you would die tonight.” he finally said stiffly. “But the dream this time was… worse. It’s getting worse. I just needed to be sure you were still here.” His voice was barely more than a breath as he finished and he hated how it weakened. 

The floor creaked again, and Jaehyun suddenly wrapped his arms around Taeyong, pressing his chest into his back. “I’m still here.” His breath was warm against Taeyong’s already heated neck and his low voice vibrated against his shoulder blades. “If that was why you came you should have said so,” he murmured. “I thought, that last morning when you pushed me away, that you didn’t like what we were doing. No, I know you liked it, I could feel that you did, but I thought you were still telling yourself you shouldn’t. Or that you weren’t ready. But if it was because of your dream….” He kissed the side of Taeyong’s neck hesitantly. Taeyong fought the urge to flinch away from how his nerves seemed to be vibrating. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to slow down his heart. 

“Yes, it was because of the dream,” he managed, trying to speak normally despite the brush of Jaehyun’s lips against his pulse. “But I stopped that part of the dream and it still wasn’t enough. I should not have come down here, I know I shouldn’t have come. I can’t stop thinking that you being close to me is what leads you to die. But I woke up afraid, and I don’t feel so afraid with you.” He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. 

Jaehyun’s fingers traced up his neck to his jaw, and turned his face towards him until their lips met. “So stay here with me tonight,” he mumbled into Taeyong’s mouth. 

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Taeyong managed to pull slightly away. “I think you getting tangled up in my dreaming must be what gets you killed,” he hissed. “It can’t be a coincidence.” 

Jaehyun didn’t loosen his hold, and he looked at him seriously and said, “I heard you say you are afraid. I’m also afraid, so stay with me. I want you to stay.” 

Taeyong didn’t say anything. There kept being moments when even though he wasn’t so uncertain anymore about what he felt, he couldn’t bring himself to admit anything aloud, and it kept surprising him that Jaehyun said these things so easily. It kept surprising him that Jaehyun felt these things for him at all. But Taeyong didn’t pull away, and he supposed maybe that said enough. Jaehyun pressed his warm cheek against the side of Taeyong’s neck and held him tightly. And when he must have felt the desire to leave drain out of Taeyong’s muscles he gently pulled him towards the bed. 

The bed was so tall there was a small wooden step next to it and Taeyong hesitated before climbing up. The bedding was in disarray, as though Jaehyun had kicked all the blankets off at some point, and there were heaps of fabric strewn over the foot of the bed and dragging down to the floor. Taeyong couldn’t blame him, given that such a ridiculous quantity of blankets would have been unbearable in the summer heat. When Taeyong finally climbed up onto the bed the sheets were soft and cool, and the mattress was so deep he almost lost his balance as he kneeled on it. 

Jaehyun put out the lamp on the other side of the bed and the room suddenly went very dark. It was a moonless night, and here on the estate, surrounded only by rolling lawns and dense woods, the darkness was complete. But it made it easier for Taeyong to lie back against the pillows without feeling so intrusive. Like the blankets, there was an abundance of pillows, and as Taeyong sank into them he found it was impossible not to relax. 

“Are you comfortable?” Jaehyun whispered. The mattress jostled as Jaehyun climbed up too. Taeyong had almost forgotten he was there for a moment in the pitch blackness of the room. 

“Yes,” Taeyong said, on a sigh. His eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness, and he could make out the windows now, the slightly lighter star-strewn sky beyond the glass. Still, there was almost no light to penetrate the inside of the room. He let his eyes close. He could hear Jaehyun’s breath beside him, and remembered listening to him breathe every night in Coveport. 

“Come closer,” Jaehyun said softly. 

Taeyong opened his eyes and stared at the dark hangings above his head. “It’s hot,” he mumbled. 

Jaehyun laughed quietly. “Yes, it is.” There was rustling against the sheets and then the pillow sank right next to Taeyong’s head. “Can I come closer to you then?” Jaehyun’s whisper skated over Taeyong’s ear. 

“You already have,” Taeyong pointed out. 

“Yes,” Jaehyun sighed sleepily and laid his arm over Taeyong’s stomach. Taeyong didn’t move away, although he could feel himself starting to sweat at the closeness of Jaehyun’s body heat.

“You shouldn’t get so close to me,” Taeyong said softly, though he had to force out the words. The memory of his recent dream still ran through him. He knew he was being selfish, staying here, letting Jaehyun hold him. He knew he should push him off and leave, that Jaehyun’s life might depend on it. But no matter what Jaehyun thought of him, Taeyong knew he was weak. This had been what he’d come here for. From the second he’d woken up from that awful vision he’d wanted this, to quietly sweat against the heat of Jaehyun’s skin and count the beats of his steady, living heart. He made himself utter his halfhearted warning but even as he said it he could feel his body easing into the weight of Jaehyun’s embrace. 

“I think it’s too late for that,” Jaehyun murmured. “But we still have time to truly change what you saw, Taeyong. I know we haven’t gotten to see much of each other since we’ve returned, but tomorrow we will speak of everything. You’ll tell me about Mr. Walrick’s dream, and we will think of what we can do next. We are not out of options yet. But…” Jaehyun let out a slow breath and there was something melancholy about the soft rush of air. “Even if we were, I would not want to let you go.” 

Taeyong bit his lip and blinked in the darkness. He could never think of anything to say in response to these sorts of words. After some time he closed his eyes again and let his head sink deeper into the pillows. For a long time the only sounds were of the crickets chirping outside in the warm night air, and a clock ticking on the mantle above the fireplace. 

“Taeyong?” Jaehyun sounded half-asleep and his voice was so quiet Taeyong didn’t think he would have heard him at all if his face hadn’t been so close. 

“Hm?” 

It was quiet for another long moment and Taeyong thought Jaehyun must have fallen asleep. But then he whispered, “Did you miss me?” 

“...What?” Taeyong wondered if he might be too close to sleep himself to be following this conversation.

“I’ve missed seeing you every day. I’ve missed eating breakfast with you and everyone at the boarding house, and sleeping beside you, even on the floor. It feels so long ago already, doesn’t it?” 

Taeyong’s chest felt tight. “Yes. But it’s… right that we’re back here. Coveport was risky. And anyway your family needs you. We were away too long.” 

“I would have stayed longer,” Jaehyun murmured. His fingers fiddled absently at the sleeve of Taeyong’s shirt. “Even with the danger of Mr. Walrick and the strangeness of the dreaming. It’s stifling here.” He shifted slightly and his knee bumped against Taeyong’s thigh. “I almost went up to your room last night. I got halfway up the stairs, even. But I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me, after what happened in Coveport before we left. Even now, knowing that that was because of your dream, I’m not sure….” He trailed off.

“What?” Taeyong held himself very still. 

“It’s hard to tell, sometimes, how you’re feeling. I think I’m always so transparent. But you seem so… careful, about what you show. Especially here.” Taeyong frowned, although the room was too dark to see. He hadn’t thought of it as being careful. It just wasn’t suitable for a servant to reveal their thoughts and feelings, and he wasn’t in the habit of doing so. “So can you tell me, if you missed me?”

“I… did,” Taeyong said stiffly. It was happening again. He knew he’d missed Jaehyun, and he knew how content he was to be here, in Jaehyun’s bed and in his arms, but saying so felt difficult. Saying how he felt about anything felt difficult, like a muscle that had gone unused for so long it had atrophied and ached now as he tried to use it again. 

Jaehyun sighed and shifted closer to Taeyong, and the heat increased as his chest pressed against Taeyong’s arm. “I’m glad,” he whispered. He lifted his hand to Taeyong’s loose collar and pulled gently until it slipped to the edge of his shoulder, and then he kissed his bare shoulder softly. Taeyong’s heart exploded in his chest so violently it shocked him. It had been such a small gesture, and Jaehyun was already settling his head back down on the pillows and seemed just as calm and sleepy as ever. But Taeyong could hardly breathe at the simple tenderness of it. That Jaehyun would even think to do something like that--and not only think of it, but act on it--simply baffled him. “Goodnight,” Jaehyun mumbled. Taeyong could barely say it back. 

Taeyong woke the next morning in a flood of sunlight and a tangle of limbs. He squinted his eyes open slowly and only gradually recognized the richly embroidered hangings around the bed and the tall windows. He turned his head and a small tremor went through him at the sight of the sleeping man beside him. Jaehyun had rolled away onto his back in the heat, but one of his legs was draped heavily over Taeyong’s. He was still wearing the robe he’d put on the night before when he’d answered the door but it had come undone and splayed open over his bare chest and stomach, which slowly rose and fell with his even breaths. Taeyong wondered what it would be like to kiss the pale smooth skin over his ribs. 

He frowned and looked up again at the hangings above him. Sunlight reflected onto them from a mirror, and he suddenly realized that there was altogether too much sunlight in this room. He sat up quickly, looked at the clock and gasped. It was very late in the morning. Cook would be beside herself. Taeyong looked at the door, dread settling in his stomach. Cook would not only be beside herself, she would have sent someone to wake Taeyong hours ago. And whoever that had been would have discovered that his bedroom was entirely empty. 

Taeyong made to scramble down from the ridiculously high bed, but a hand suddenly clamped around his wrist. Taeyong turned and the words he’d been about to say almost died in his throat at the sight of Jaehyun, lying there with his hair mussed against the pillow and a small smile on his face. His lips were wet, as though he’d just licked them. But Taeyong managed, “It’s late, I must go.” 

“I don’t think you must,” Jaehyun said, and pulled at Taeyong’s wrist. 

“They’ll have noticed my absence. Please, I am never late.” 

“But you slept well, didn’t you?” Jaehyun asked. 

“Y-yes,” Taeyong admitted. The lowness of Jaehyun’s voice when he first woke up stirred something in his gut, though he’d heard him speak like this many times by now. 

“You can take the day off, can’t you?” 

“No! Not suddenly like this. They’ll be worried about where I was. I already don’t know what to say…. This is not something anyone can know.” 

A complicated look crossed Jaehyun’s face but then he sat up. “Alright,” he said. But he didn’t let go of Taeyong’s wrist, and instead pulled him closer, and kissed him. Taeyong wondered how many ways there were to kiss another person. He would not have expected each kiss to feel so different, but they all seemed to. This one was slow and languid, so slow that Taeyong barely registered that it was deepening, that Jaehyun had slid his fingers into Taeyong’s hair and his tongue past his lips. It was a kiss that Taeyong felt in more places than just his mouth. 

He finally pushed Jaehyun away and clapped a hand over his own wet lips. “I need to go,” he said. “We will speak later and I’ll tell you about Mr. Walrick’s dream, I’ve spoken to Alma of it already. But I must go now.” He slid awkwardly off of the high bed and went to the door, already planning how he would convince the staff he’d simply been out at the stables since dawn and had not been hungry for breakfast. No noise came from beyond the door, and when he cracked it open the hall was blessedly deserted. 

“I will find you later,” Jaehyun called. Taeyong slipped carefully from the room. 

They were not able to speak later. In the late afternoon as Taeyong returned from the stables, he saw the maids who’d been attending Lord Jung leave the house with a large bundle of bedding between them, and when he entered the manor he saw that all activity seemed to have stopped. The only sounds were the muted voices coming from Lord Jung’s chambers, and after a moment even those voices fell silent. Servants stood in the hall, far more than might have been called upon to assist with anything, and Taeyong stood among them. The sun inched across the floor and then faded from the windows entirely, and the manor remained silent as night fell. 

Finally, after an eternity, the door opened and the doctor came out, followed by Jaehyun. They disappeared downstairs. As they passed, Taeyong could see that there was a determined set to Jaehyun’s jaw. It made him feel strangely sad, more so than if Jaehyun had been crying. The expression told him what they all already knew: Lord Jung was dead, and the responsibility for this estate and for everyone in it had now fallen upon the young man hurrying past them in the doctor’s wake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for sticking with me and reading! sorry this chapter was a bit delayed >< but hope you enjoy! <33

**Author's Note:**

> kudos & comments always appreciated if you'd care to leave them, and thank you for reading! <3
> 
> twt: [@TtotheYong](https://twitter.com/TtotheYong)  
> dms are always open :)


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